After losing both his promotion and the lovely Priscilla Halburton-Smythe, Hamish Macbeth decides the best cure for a broken heart is a week's break at the charming coastal village of Skag. When he arrives at the Friendly House B&B, however, he finds the ambience chilling, the food inedible and his fellow guests less than neighbourly. They include the annoying Miss Gunnery; a family from London; and Bob Harris, who so nags his wife that everyone wants to kill him.