Judith: My husband snores and steals the blankets and God help us if he eats cabbage, but he’s very kind. He brings me a cup of tea in bed every day and how many women can say that?

Keith (whispering): I love my wife. She’s a splendid woman. But she’s not one to keep her thoughts to herself, so the early morning before she’s awake is a precious time for me. (normal voice) Marriage is all about small adjustments.

Judith: Not to mention massive adjustments! We were trundling along quite the thing, headed for sixty, and then . . . we took a daft turn.

Keith: We bought a small hotel in the countryside, after an inheritance. No one was more surprised than the two of us! What did we know about hospitality? Not a thing. But there’s nothing like a willing spirit (and sinking every last penny).

Judith: It was good fun getting the place ready. For me anyway. (whispering) Keith hadn’t had a thought about lampshades in his life until we suddenly had four en suite bedrooms and the rest to deal with. Not that lampshades matter, as such.

Keith: What matters, in a Scottish hotel, is this: crisply ironed sheets; fresh milk in a thermos for making tea in the rooms; plenty bacon with the breakfasts.

Judith: Bare bulbs would get you a one-star review but as long as there’s a shade of some description, no one cares. What really matters is fluffy towels, good coffee, and jigsaw puzzles. If you’re not going to have a telly in the residents’ lounge, you need a jigsaw puzzle, on a nice big table, under a good light, started but nowhere near finished. Better than ten shelves of books any day.

Keith: And books. There’s no point trying to run a hotel in a country where it rains as much as it does in Scotland if you don’t provide a good selection of quality books in the residents’ lounge. Books on the shelves, logs in the basket, and whisky in the decanters.

Judith: The one thing we don’t go overboard on is lunch. Most of them go out for the day if the weather’s nice, or at least go out for lunch even if it’s raining. Big pot of thick soup, good crusty bread, butter in a dish, salt in a bowl, iron the napkins and Bob’s your uncle.

Keith: Evenings are easy too. I don’t know how you’d run a hotel in a dry country, or even a less sozzled one. But here, in Scotland, if the whisky’s free, the white wine’s cold, the red wine’s lukewarm and the glasses are polished . . . Fanny’s your aunt. We might need to get in on this gin explosion if it doesn’t die down, but I’m biding my time for now.

Judith: Dinner has never gone badly wrong yet. I ask them to tell me their dietary doodads when they’re booking and work out the menus from there. It’s a head scratcher sometimes, but thank God for chicken and squash! If we ever get a vegan guest who hates squash or a normal guest who hates chicken we’ll be well snookered. Fingers crossed though.

Keith: We’re early bedders now, of course. If the hotel’s full, we’re in our wee flat in the basement as soon as the dinner dishes are done. If not, who’s to stop us rolling about in a fourposter with some of that chilled white wine?

Judith: It’s our house, after all. And we’re married, not dead.

Hop Scot, A Last Ditch Mystery Book #6
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Release: December 2023
Format: Print, Digital
Purchase Link

It’s all aboard for a Campbell Clan Christmas! Lexy swaps cinnamon lattes for boiled sprouts when the Last Ditch crew travel from California to an idyllic Scottish village for the holidays, but something very unmerry is lurking below the surface . . .

Lexy Campbell is long overdue a trip to Scotland to see her parents, and an unexpected death in the extended Last Ditch Motel family makes Christmas in a bungalow in Dundee with nine others seem almost irresistible.

But when Lexy and the Last Ditch crew hop across the Atlantic, there’s a change of plan and they’re whisked off to Mistletoe Hall in the pretty village of Yule, where the surprises continue. The news that a man disappeared from the crumbling pile sixty years ago, along with an unsettling discovery in the bricked-up basement, means that Todd, Kathi and Lexy – Trinity for Trouble – must solve another murder.

Deadly secrets, snow, berry rustlers, ornithology, skeletons and Christmas Eve in the booze aisle at Tesco: the Last Ditch crew won’t forget their Scottish holiday in a hurry!

About the author
Catriona McPherson (she/her) was born in Scotland and immigrated to the US in 2010. She writes preposterous 1930s private detective stories, realistic 1940s amateur sleuth stories, and contemporary psychological standalones. These are all set in Scotland with a lot of Scottish weather. She also writes modern comedies about the Last Ditch Motel in a “fictional” college town in Northern California. HOP SCOT, number six in the series, sees the Ditchers on a trip to Scotland for the Christmas holiday. Catriona’s books have won or been shortlisted for the Edgar, the Anthony, the Agatha, the Lefty, the Macavity, the Mary Higgins Clark award and the UK Ellery Queen Dagger. She is a proud lifetime member and former national president of Sisters in Crime. Connect with Catriona at her website at catrionamcpherson.com.