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Charlotte MacLeod

The first three novels featuring the sleuthing Boston couple: “The screwball mystery is Charlotte MacLeod’s cup of tea.” —Chicago Tribune

Packed with wit, simmering romance, and complicated crimes, the whodunits in this delightfully cozy collection from the two-time Edgar Award finalist include:

The Family Vault

An aging burlesque star’s fresh corpse turns up in an old family tomb at Boston Common and Sarah Kelling must investigate in this “first-rate suspense whodunit” (The Cincinnati Post).

 

The Withdrawing Room

Facing a dwindling inheritance and the loss of her stately Back Bay brownstone, Sarah opens her home to lodgers—deciding she prefers a boardinghouse to the poorhouse. But when the death of one resident is followed by another, she turns to detective Max Bittersohn for help . . . “One of the most gifted mystery authors writing today.” —Sojourner

The Palace Guard

A museum robbery leaves a guard dead, and art-fraud investigator Max teams up with widowed socialite Sarah to crack the case, even if it ruffles the feathers of the city’s upper crust . . . “If this is your first meeting with Sarah Kelling, oh how I envy you.” —Margaret Maron

MysteriousPress.com/Open Road

The Sarah Kelling and Max Bittersohn Mysteries

The Sarah Kelling and Max Bittersohn Mysteries Volume One: The Family Vault, The Withdrawing Room, and The Palace Guard

Christmas crimes hit close to home for Boston’s favorite art sleuths. “Charlotte MacLeod’s mysteries are witty and full of humor” (Maine Crime Writers).
 The angry old men of the Comrades of the Convivial Codfish club celebrate yuletide doing what they do best: eating, drinking, and greeting the season of giving with a spirited “bah, humbug!” Though well past sixty, Jem Kelling is a relative infant compared to some of the club’s elder statesmen, and he has waited decades to host their annual Christmas scowl. And during his first evening as Exalted Chowderhead, he is thrilled to find the wine abundant, the chowder superb, and the humbugs as lusty as ever. But as the night winds down, Jem is horrified to find that the ceremonial Codfish necklace has vanished—right off of his neck! His nephew-in-law, art investigator Max Bittersohn, is convinced his new uncle was the victim of a practical joke. But when the old man takes a hip-snapping tumble, Max is forced to conclude that one of the scrooges is trying to perpetrate a deadly Christmas jeer.

The Convivial Codfish

Death pays a visit to Sarah Kelling’s Boston boardinghouse in this cozy mystery from the bestselling author of the Peter Shandy series.
 Though the inheritance from her dearly departed Alexander was meant to set Sarah Kelling up for life, it vanishes quickly in the face of hounding from charitable organizations and the IRS. Facing the loss of her stately Back Bay brownstone, Sarah opens her home to lodgers—deciding she prefers a boardinghouse to the poorhouse. Soon she’s cooking meals and serving tea for a cast of quirky residents, a cozy little family that would be quite happy were it not for the unpleasant presence of a certain Barnwell Augustus Quiffen—a man so rude that no one really minds when he’s squashed beneath a subway car. Sarah replaces her lost boarder quickly, and the family dynamic is restored. But when another lodger dies suddenly, the boardinghouse appears to be cursed. Now it’ll take more than a glass of sherry to soothe Sarah’s panicked residents, and she must turn to detective Max Bittersohn for help before her boarders bolt.

 “The epitome of the ‘cozy’ mystery” (Mostly Murder), award-winning author Charlotte MacLeod’s Sarah Kelling and Max Bittersohn Mysteries have charmed readers the world over.

The Withdrawing Room

A museum robbery leaves a guard dead, and two Boston sleuths investigate: “If this is your first meeting with Sarah Kelling, oh how I envy you” (Margaret Maron).
 It’s only been a few months since Sarah Kelling’s elderly husband passed away, and she’s struggling to adapt to life as a penniless young widow. To make ends meet, she converts her stately Boston home into a boardinghouse, a decision that brings something even better than money: the company of art-fraud investigator Max Bittersohn. The budding couple is standing on a balcony, recovering from a second-rate concert at a third-rate museum, when something plummets past them. The museum has been robbed, and a guard has fallen to his death. Dozens of priceless paintings have been stolen and replaced with forgeries, and recovering these masterworks will mean tearing the lid off the quiet life of the Boston upper crust. But it’s a chance Sarah and Max must take, lest they join the guard on his long trip down.

The Palace Guard

A couple finds an antique mirror that isn’t broken, but still brings bad luck—“MacLeod can be counted on for a witty, literate, and charming mystery” (Publishers Weekly).

According to Max Bittersohn, he and Sarah Kelling have witnessed enough murder and unhappiness, so it’s high time they got married. And though Sarah hasn’t yet agreed to such drastic measures, she invites Max to summer with her at Ireson’s Landing. But they haven’t been in the house ten minutes when they stumble upon summer’s first mystery—a mint-condition, antique Spanish mirror that is tremendously rare and valuable. Sarah has never seen it before and she doesn’t know how it ended up in the summerhouse, but the sleuthing couple will soon find this looking glass to be more troublesome than anything Lewis Carroll ever invented. As the zany Kelling clan descends on Ireson’s Landing, Sarah and her beau try to uncover the mystery of the Bilbao looking glass—a quest that is disrupted when a vicious next-door neighbor is found hacked to death with a woodshed ax. By summer’s end, Sarah and Max will learn that some murders can be solved simply by looking in the mirror.

The Bilbao Looking Glass

A couple finds an antique mirror that isn’t broken, but still brings bad luck—“MacLeod can be counted on for a witty, literate, and charming mystery” (Publishers Weekly).
 According to Max Bittersohn, he and Sarah Kelling have witnessed enough murder and unhappiness, so it’s high time they got married. And though Sarah hasn’t yet agreed to such drastic measures, she invites Max to summer with her at Ireson’s Landing. But they haven’t been in the house ten minutes when they stumble upon summer’s first mystery—a mint-condition, antique Spanish mirror that is tremendously rare and valuable. Sarah has never seen it before and she doesn’t know how it ended up in the summerhouse, but the sleuthing couple will soon find this looking glass to be more troublesome than anything Lewis Carroll ever invented. As the zany Kelling clan descends on Ireson’s Landing, Sarah and her beau try to uncover the mystery of the Bilbao looking glass—a quest that is disrupted when a vicious next-door neighbor is found hacked to death with a woodshed ax. By summer’s end, Sarah and Max will learn that some murders can be solved simply by looking in the mirror.

Christmas crimes hit close to home for Boston’s favourite art sleuths. “Charlotte MacLeod’s mysteries are witty and full of humour” (Maine Crime Writers).

The angry old men of the Comrades of the Convivial Codfish club celebrate yuletide doing what they do best: eating, drinking, and greeting the season of giving with a spirited “bah, humbug!” Though well past sixty, Jem Kelling is a relative infant compared to some of the club’s elder statesmen, and he has waited decades to host their annual Christmas scowl. And during his first evening as Exalted Chowderhead, he is thrilled to find the wine abundant, the chowder superb, and the humbugs as lusty as ever. 

But as the night winds down, Jem is horrified to find that the ceremonial Codfish necklace has vanished—right off of his neck! His nephew-in-law, art investigator Max Bittersohn, is convinced his new uncle was the victim of a practical joke. But when the old man takes a hip-snapping tumble, Max is forced to conclude that one of the scrooges is trying to perpetrate a deadly Christmas jeer.

A museum murder puts Boston’s married art sleuths to work: “The screwball mystery is Charlotte MacLeod’s cup of tea” (Chicago Tribune).
 When the doddering patrons of the Wilkins Museum learned that dozens of their priceless masterworks had been stolen and replaced by forgeries, there was no one to turn to but Sarah Kelling and Max Bittersohn—the savviest art detectives of the Boston upper crust. Nabbing the crooks was easy, but finding the missing paintings has proven trickier. Years later, the collection’s prized Titian is still lost, and the new director, loudmouthed cattle baron Elwyn Fleesom Turbot, is getting impatient. And things get even more troublesome when members of his staff begin to die. It starts when Dolores Tawne, the elderly, bossy museum administrator, is stabbed through the base of her skull with an antique hatpin. Inside the dead woman’s safe deposit box Sarah finds clues to a conspiracy that stretches back decades and a way to stop the murders that are still to come.