1977, #1 Professor Peter Shandy, Balaclava Agricultural College, New England; murder of an obnoxious woman at Christmastime involves a quiet academic in sleuthing and affection; her first adult novel, it's filled with all the right stuff for a lovely cosy village-type comedy/mystery, plus a bit m...
The Convivial Codfish, 1984, by Charlotte MacLeod. 5th in the Sarah Kelling/Max Bittersohn series.Max plays the stronger role here, with his wife Sarah more in the background. Sarah’s relative Jem Kelling has just become Exalted Chowderhead of the Comrades of Convivial Codfish, and is honoured to...
Professor Peter Shandy is in trouble up to the eyeballs again. With the Annual Competition of the Balaclava County Draft Horse Association coming up, some saboteur has reversed all the horseshoes nailed to the stable doors of Balaclava Agricultural College as good luck charms. Shandy predicts dir...
As a regular mystery reader, it seems rare when yours truly falls for every “red herring” in the book. The Resurrection Man is one of those books that took me on exactly that wild ride. Generally, when I read Charlotte MacLeod’s work, I have a vague sense of where it is going. In this case, I loc...
1979, #1 Sarah Kelling/Max Bittersohn, Beacon Hill, Boston; genteel cosy, still wonderful despite age. High jinks (and murder) in High Society, but with a very dark edgeMrs. Sarah Kelling has lived a very privileged life in the highest social circles of Boston, living on Beacon Hill and having a ...
EBB TIDES, DARK SECRETS...AND MADNESS BENEATH THE MOONThe tiny New Brunswick village was a lifetime away from the world of a New York fashion model. but a freak accident had sent Holly Howe there to recover in seclusion...and to work at the only job she could find---as a servant at Cliff House. S...
I was disappointed with “The Corpse In Oozak’s Pond” after finishing “The Palace Guard”; which was phenomenal. The previous Peter novel too, raised the roof on the unexpected; a medieval fantasy! This time, I did like acquainting a far region of university terrain. Discovering a corpse in th...
Professor Peter Shandy, Balaclava College's best amateur sleuth, takes on a pest threatening to wipe Britain's lovely hedgerows. With colleagues Dan Stott and Timothy Ames, he leaves the groves of academe for fancy fieldword in the heart of Wales. Never in their wildest dreams did the three expec...
Amateur sleuths Professor Peter Shandy and his wife Helen of Balaclava Agricultural College are back, faced with a very disagreeable--and very murdered--bird watcher during a traditional owl count. "Piquant puns, suitable silly nomenclature, and audacious adventures enliven MacLeod's latest".--Bo...
Professor Peter Shandy of Balaclava Agricultural College saves the Horsefall farm when pranks escalate to murder. Reporter Cronkite Swope invents a Norse Curse, triggered by a disturbed runestone, when a farmhand is killed by limestone as Hilda Horsefall prepares to celebrate her 105th birthday. ...
“The Palace Guard” entertains us, in Canadian Charlotte MacLeod’s much loved series about a young Boston widow and her relatives. It’s rewarding that we know them well. They make us laugh and are identifiable, thus we are mentally involved with the story. Personal thoughts and sidebar observat...
I just reread this for the umpteenth time (I'm rereading the series). A charming-silly-slightly brooding romp--which is what one expects of MacLeod, and is certainly true of all the Grub-and-Stakers books. But I was struck this time around, because I have been doing a lot of thinking about the ...
Twin-toting Dittany Monk, her Western-writer husband Osbert, and the Grub and Stake Gardening and Roving Club are snarled in another murder. Miss Jane Fuzzywuzzy's Yarnery is the wildest, woolliest place in Lobelia Falls, Ontario. Expecting cousins from England, Miss Jane finds the corpse of a lo...
The Grub and Stakers Gardening and Roving Club act out the Robert Service poem about Dangerous Dan McGrew to win a prize, but murder intervenes. Dittany Henbit Monk and her crew of sleuths are on the case.
Dittany Henbit is a cheeky spinster who appreciates hermits. Sergeant MacVicars polices close-knit Lobelia Falls, where every citizen is an archery addict. Aided by author Arethusa Monk, the crew find out who shish-kebobbed the Water Works man, run a campaign, plan a 25th anniversary party, and i...
Although he is a decorated officer of the Mounted Police, Madoc Rhys’s tin ear has long been an embarrassment to his musically fixated family. But when his father’s orchestra needs a policeman, the Mountie gets a chance to make daddy proud. It began as pranks among the brass instruments, but some...
Sarah and Max deal with Sarah's Yacht club friends or rather Alexander's friends who wish to protect her from that Jewish fellow Bittersohn. Instead they decide who would be most suitable for Sarah to marry from among their number to keep her in her proper social milieu. Meanwhile Max's family ar...
Murder Goes Mumming, 1981, by Charlotte MacLeod (aka Alisa Craig). 2nd in the Janet Wadman/Madoc Rhys series.Janet and Madoc met in A Pint of Murder, and promptly fell in love. In this book, their love affair continues, with Janet finding out all sorts of unexpected facts about the man she though...
Vane Pursuit by Charlotte MacLeod is one of my loosely contrued academic mysteries. MacLeod has two sets of series characters: Professor Peter Shandy & his lovely librarian wife Helen and Sarah Kelling & Max Bittersohn. Both series are very literate and very funny and feature an eccentric cast of...
After listening to an old favorite THE FAMILY VAULT, #1 in this series, and loving it, I was aware that #3 is also available in audio. I had to reread #2 THE WITHDRAWING ROOM to get to it. Am I glad I did!Sarah Kelling, new widow, turns her old family mansion into a boarding house. The boarders a...
I'm fairly certain that I picked this book up at a garage sale. Or a thrift store? I had it on my TBR shelves for about 2 years before I finally picked it up. And it's taken me a LONG time to get through it. Not that it was bad, it just kept putting me to sleep. It's the first in the series for m...
I was so excited to read a mystery book, but I was sadly disappointed. Right off the bat, I felt like there were too many characters with different names, and it was hard to follow the story. By the time I truly got a grip on who the characters were I had missed so much. When the person who commi...
Charlotte MacLeod had been a well-established cozy author in the '90s, when I got this Advance. It's sad to learn, now, that she only published two more books before falling victim to Alzheimer's and dying in 2005. Given that she published nearly 40 books and lived to the age of 83, though, I pro...
VEGETABLES CAN BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR HEALTH! Old Agatha Treadway baked her own bread, canned her own vegetables---and died of botulism in her very own kitchen. Accident, says Dr. Druffitt. Murder, says neighbor Janet Wadman. And says it again when she finds the doctor dead, too. Detective Inspecto...
Art detective Max Bittersohn knows when to lie low. He wisely keeps out of the way when his wife, Sarah Kelling, plans a huge wedding for his nephew at their Boston North Shore mansion. By the time the Kelling and Bittersohn clans arrive on the big day, everything, including the weather, seems pe...
HE yipped like a fussy old terrier, “you’ll have to drive me home.” “So late?” Emma protested. “Can’t you stay here, Fred? I’d be glad to give you a bed.” “Emma, I do not want your bed. I want my own bed. Get your coat, Sarah.” Arguing with an elderly relative who’d made up his mind to do as he c...
Rintoul had fallen face down with his hands doubled under him. Madoc did find the tumbler he’d been drinking from; it had rolled under the stove. The indication was that he’d dropped it when he fell. Since Rintoul hadn’t lifted a hand yesterday to tidy up after himself, it was unlikely he was bri...
This had to be Ellis minding the shop. He didn’t look a bit like his chic, dark-haired sister, though he was rather attractive in a weedy, Bambi-eyed sort of way. Maybe he was a throwback to Myrtle the naughty housemaid. He must be at least twenty, but had the softness of youth on him. In spite o...
Helen sighed. “What time did you come in, for goodness’ sake?” “Who knows?” Shandy held out his cup for more tea. “Sometime around three or half-past, I think.” “Which means you may possibly have got as much as four hours’ sleep, counting what little you had before that fiend Thorkjeld woke you. ...
This was the first, and is the only story of its kind I’ve written so far. It was published in Edgar Wallace Mystery Magazine, July 1965, as “Quietly, by Night.” I had been sleeping badly ever since my husband died. My first night in the new apartment was not likely to be a good one. I put off go...
The way she felt this morning, it might have been her own funeral Sarah was talking about. What little sleep she’d got had been filled with nightmares, bones dancing in gowns of rotted satin, skulls that grinned and twinkled, Alexander doing things she’d rather not try to remember. He looked more...
He’s certainly fun to read, as mystery fans have’ been discovering in increasing numbers ever since his first Sheriff Rhodes story appeared in 1986, and as you’re about to discover right now. Bill’s a mystery fan himself He started writing articles and reviews for fanzines (publications intended ...
Sarah dropped off, still wondering why. She woke with the sun blazing in through the opened curtains and Max entertaining his son with an imitation of Boris Chaliapin and John McCormack singing “The Three Little Pigs” in concert. “I know,” she exclaimed for what must have ...
At any rate, nobody tried to riddle the three cyclists with bullets, run them off the road, or even stop to pass the time of day. Peter and Miss Binks rendezvoused with Cronkite at a patch of conservation land just outside Whittington and managed to find a big fallen pine with a capacious hollow ...
“When I introduced Osbert and Dittany Monk as my deputies, Cousin Matilda,” he said rather coldly, “I spoke naught but the truth. Together, these two young folk have succeeded in clearing up three of the most baffling mysteries that e’er sullied the annals of law enforcement. Osbert Monk needs no...
Madoc and Sir Caradoc were coming down the hill, very slowly. The old man was leaning heavily on the cane he often carried but seldom made much use of. Sir Emlyn and Lady Rhys fell back to walk with him, keeping the baby with them, Madoc came on ahead to meet Janet. “Anything happening, love?” “L...