<div><B>In rural Canada, a woman dies after eating from a jar of tainted green beans&mdash;and a Mountie must preserve the evidence.</B><BR /><BR /> In a quiet small town in New Brunswick, old Agatha Treadway makes one last cranky complaint to her niece before dying on her kitchen floor. The cause seems to be a jar of contaminated string beans, which sat on Agatha&rsquo;s basement shelf for years before becoming her final meal. The town doctor calls it a tragic accident&mdash;and a warning to all who can their own vegetables&mdash;but Agatha&rsquo;s neighbor, the intrepid Janet Wadman, knows better. Agatha was an expert canner, which means the beans must have been placed there by someone else. This was murder.<BR /><BR /> Before Janet can share her theory with the town doctor, he, too, meets an untimely death. To oversee the investigation, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police send Madoc Rhys, a wholly unusual Mountie who poses as Janet&rsquo;s relative while he searches for the killer. But Madoc soon finds himself falling for his partner in detection, and before he can make his feelings known, the pair will have to contend with a secret far more deadly than botulism.<BR /><BR /> Originally published under the pseudonym Alisa Craig, <I>A Pint of Murder </I>is a witty look at murder in a small town and a classic cozy mystery about love, death, and the evil of vegetables.<BR /><BR /> A Pint of Murder <I>is the 1st book in the Madoc and Janet Rhys Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.</I></div>

A Pint of Murder

<div><B>Missing Rolls Royces, Renaissance fair revelry&mdash;and murder: &ldquo;A witty, literate and charming mystery&rdquo; featuring Boston&rsquo;s married art sleuths (<I>Publishers Weekly</I>). </B><BR />  Sarah Kelling and her husband, Max Bittersohn, have made names for themselves tracking down stolen paintings, sculptures, and, when necessary, the occasional murderer. But this is the first time they have been asked to find a missing Rolls Royce. When Bill Billingsgate&rsquo;s prize 1927 New Phantom disappears, they head for his estate on the Massachusetts coast, arriving&mdash;to their horror&mdash;just in time for Billingsgate&rsquo;s annual Renaissance fair. Donning period dress, they grab pints of mead and start searching the crowd for the thief. Instead they find a corpse. When the local police bungle the investigation, Max and Sarah take it upon themselves to find the killer. In the course of their search, they confront a car thief, corruption at a radio station, and a horde of murderous bees. If this is the Renaissance, Max and Sarah can&rsquo;t wait to return to the present.</div>

The Silver Ghost

<div><B>Murder turns a Christmas trip into a working holiday for Mountie Madoc Rhys and his bride-to-be in this holiday whodunit from the &ldquo;cozy mystery queen&rdquo; (<I>Early Bird Books</I>).</B><BR />  Though he may not look the part, Madoc Rhys is a Mountie&mdash;and his keen sense of detection tells him it&rsquo;s time to ask Janet Wadman to marry him. They have just gotten engaged when Christmas rolls around, and Janet&rsquo;s boss invites them to his family estate for a last holiday fling before Janet leaves her job. After a long helicopter ride, they are at Graylings, ancestral home of the Condryckes, a family so strange that Canada&rsquo;s shortest Mountie fits right in. There is a psychic old woman, an erudite butler, and a family patriarch who is the spitting image of an English country squire. And when the elderly Mrs. Condrycke is found murdered, Janet will be glad she brought Madoc along. Though civilization is far away, when there is a Mountie in the house, justice is close at hand.</div>

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Murder Goes Mumming

<div><B>A widowed gardener meets a ghost from frontier times who&rsquo;s out for revenge: &ldquo;The screwball mystery is Charlotte MacLeod&rsquo;s cup of tea&rdquo; (<I>Chicago Tribune</I>).</B><BR />   Zilla Trott is pouring her cat some chamomile tea when the drifter appears in her kitchen. He is grubby and crude&mdash;not at all the kind of person you&rsquo;d usually find in the pleasant town of Lobelia Falls&mdash;but something about him intrigues the aging widow. Perhaps it&rsquo;s his rugged good looks, or the way he seems to come from another time and place. Or perhaps it&rsquo;s the fact that he&rsquo;s been dead for nearly a century. When Lobelia Falls was in its rough-and-tumble frontier infancy, Hiram Jellyby was the best mule driver the town had ever seen, until an argument over a hidden cache of gold left him bleeding to death in a back alley. He returns in spectral form to secure a proper burial, and finds that in modern-day Lobelia Falls, no one knows more about turning the soil than Zilla Trott&rsquo;s gardening buddies&mdash;all members of Dittany Monk&rsquo;s fearless Grub-and-Stake Gardening and Roving Club.</div>

The Grub-and-Stakers House a Haunt

<div><B>A Canadian Mountie investigates a murder among musicians in this mystery by the Edgar Award&ndash;nominated author of the Peter Shandy series.</B><BR />  Although he is a decorated officer of the Mounted Police, Madoc Rhys&rsquo;s tin ear has long been an embarrassment to his musically fixated family. But when his father&rsquo;s orchestra needs a policeman, the Mountie gets a chance to make daddy proud. It began as pranks among the brass instruments, but something is rotten inside the Wagstaffe Symphony, and is about to graduate to something criminal. Called in to look into the tensions within the group, Madoc arrives just in time to see the French horn player keel over. The death appears natural, and the orchestra boards the plane to its next engagement. But when a storm forces them to make an emergency landing and take shelter in an eerie old lodge, the extent of the danger becomes clear. Madoc may never understand music, but he has a good ear for murder, and is about to show off his chops.</div>

Trouble in the Brasses

<div><B>A Canadian Mountie and his family take a trip to Wales where ancient rituals prove deadly&mdash;from an author &ldquo;in the top rank of modern mystery fiction&rdquo; (Elizabeth Peters).</B><BR />  For mounted policeman Madoc Rhys and his wife, Janet, the pains of traveling with an infant are worth  taking young Dorothy to Wales for Great-Uncle Sir Caradoc&rsquo;s ninetieth birthday. Along with every other member of the Rhys clan, they make the pilgrimage to the ancestral pile, to enjoy a few days of drinks, dinner, and&mdash;as it turns out&mdash;demonic sacrifices. On their first morning at the family manor, Madoc stumbles upon a concussed shepherd and a dismembered ram. It appears to be a botched attempt at an ancient rite, executed by one of those Welshmen who still carry a torch for the religion of the druids. For a spot of fun, the Rhys family decides to stage its own ritual&mdash;recreating the fertility ceremony of the Beltane bonfires. But when the flames turn a member of his family into a fireball, Madoc springs to action. Even five thousand miles from Canada, a Mountie always gets his man.</div>

The Wrong Rite

<div><B>A small town gardening&mdash;and archery&mdash;club must solve a murder case and save their town from developers in the first cozy mystery featuring Dittany Henbit.</B><BR />  Anyone growing up in Lobelia Falls is taught to learn the elegant, ancient, and occasionally deadly art of shooting with a bow and arrow. Practicing the craft, freelance secretary Dittany Henbit is strolling through the woods with her bow at her side when she meets a surveyor making surveys where he shouldn&rsquo;t. Dittany is giving him what-for when an arrow goes whizzing above her head. It is sharp enough to kill, and was not fired by accident, but Dittany wasn&rsquo;t the target. She and the surveyor find Mr. Architrave, the head of the water department, not far away&mdash;lying dead beneath the trees that he loved so much. Progress is coming to Lobelia Falls, and one resident will do anything to stop it. But in a town where every child can shoot, how can Dittany discover who drew the killer bow?</div>

The Grub-and-Stakers Move a Mountain

<div><B>Death pays a visit to Sarah Kelling&rsquo;s Boston boardinghouse in this cozy mystery from the bestselling author of the Peter Shandy series.</B><BR />  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&mdash;deciding she prefers a boardinghouse to the poorhouse. Soon she&rsquo;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&mdash;a man so rude that no one really minds when he&rsquo;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&rsquo;ll take more than a glass of sherry to soothe Sarah&rsquo;s panicked residents, and she must turn to detective Max Bittersohn for help before her boarders bolt.<BR /><BR /> &ldquo;The epitome of the &lsquo;cozy&rsquo; mystery&rdquo; (<I>Mostly Murder</I>), award-winning author Charlotte MacLeod&rsquo;s Sarah Kelling and Max Bittersohn Mysteries have charmed readers the world over.</div>

The Withdrawing Room

<div><B>Family ties draw Boston&rsquo;s art sleuths into an island murder mystery in this &ldquo;unalloyed pleasure&rdquo; from the international bestselling author (<I>Publishers Weekly</I>).</B><BR />  Though a few years past sixty, Sarah Kelling&rsquo;s Aunt Emma is as vigorous as a girl of twenty-two. She sings, she dances, and when the local fire department needs a fundraising boost, she&rsquo;s happy to jump out a window for charity. This summer, she decamps to Maine, to beat the heat at an island retreat for artists and great thinkers. There are writers, painters, a psychic, and a historian, and their company promises to be great fun&mdash;until a few of them go treasure-crazy. Sensible people have long dismissed rumors of the Pocapuk Island treasure as myth, but artists are seldom sensible. When their rampant digging stirs up buried trouble, it leads to theft, drugging, and a murder. And although Sarah and her husband Max give investigative advice by phone, it&rsquo;s up to Aunt Emma to save the islanders from themselves.</div>

The Gladstone Bag

<div><b>Chasing a vile English plant, Professor Peter Shandy and his friends go on a most peculiar trip</b><BR>The giant hogweed, a creeping menace known for crushing the life out of any plant foolish enough to get in its way, has put the hedgerows and pastures of the English countryside in jeopardy. Fishermen find their streams clogged, young lovers are caught with rashes in embarrassing places, and the English nudist colony has been all but exterminated. Only Peter Shandy, the famed horticulturalist responsible for the world&rsquo;s finest rutabaga, can save the day. But when Shandy and his colleagues set out to find hogweed samples, they stumble into an unusually mystical adventure. Quite by accident, Shandy trips through a publican&rsquo;s portal, and finds himself conversing with a giant. Trapped in a land of castles, wizards, and knights, Shandy must use every scrap of his horticultural genius to get back home&mdash;lest the hogweed triumph in his absence.</div>

The Curse of the Giant Hogweed

<div><P><B>A Christmas scrooge discovers a murdered librarian in this holiday novel from an Edgar Award finalist known for her &ldquo;witty, literate, and charming&rdquo; mysteries (<I>Publishers Weekly</I>).</B><BR />  <BR /> Each December, the faculty of Balaclava Agricultural College goes wild with holiday decorations. The entire campus glitters with Christmas lights, save for one dark spot: the home of professor Peter Shandy. But after years of resisting the school&rsquo;s Illumination festival, Shandy suddenly snaps, installing a million-watt display of flashing lights and blaring music perfectly calculated to drive his neighbors mad. Then the horticulturalist flees town, planning to spend Christmas on a tramp steamer. It&rsquo;s not long before he feels guilty about his prank and returns home to find his lights extinguished&mdash;and a dead librarian in his living room.<BR />  <BR /> Hoping to avoid a scandal, the school&rsquo;s head asks Shandy, sometimes detective, to investigate the matter quietly. After all, Christmas is big business, and the town needs the cash infusion that typically comes with the Illumination. But as Shandy will soon find out, there&rsquo;s a dark side to even the whitest of white Christmases.<BR />  </P></div>

Rest You Merry

<div><B>Christmas crimes hit close to home for Boston&rsquo;s favorite art sleuths. &ldquo;Charlotte MacLeod&rsquo;s mysteries are witty and full of humor&rdquo; (<I>Maine Crime Writers</I>).</B><BR />  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 &ldquo;bah, humbug!&rdquo; Though well past sixty, Jem Kelling is a relative infant compared to some of the club&rsquo;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&mdash;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.</div>

Overdrive

The Convivial Codfish

<div><B>Long-lost relatives and priceless jewels turn a wedding upside down</B><BR /> For all the Kellings&rsquo; quirks, no other family in Boston is more adept at throwing a wedding. So when Max Bittersohn&rsquo;s wife, Sarah Kelling, offers to organize his nephew&rsquo;s nuptials, Max is smart enough to stay out of her way. But when the art-fraud investigator stumbles onto a family mystery, he is drawn into something far more serious than the question of who will catch the bouquet. Stolen years earlier, the priceless Kelling jewels were last seen in Amsterdam, so how did they end up among the wedding gifts? Max is trying to answer that question when a talkative burglar wallops him with a shovel in a failed attempt to rip off the rubies. Then, as the reception winds down, a hot-air balloon lands on the wedding tent, spilling out the Zickerys, a branch of the Kelling clan who prove even odder than the original strain. Family weddings are never easy, but for Max Bittersohn, this one could be murder.</div>

The Balloon Man

<div><B>A museum robbery leaves a guard dead, and two Boston sleuths investigate: &ldquo;If this is your first meeting with Sarah Kelling, oh how I envy you&rdquo; (Margaret Maron).</B><BR />   It&rsquo;s only been a few months since Sarah Kelling&rsquo;s elderly husband passed away, and she&rsquo;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&rsquo;s a chance Sarah and Max must take, lest they join the guard on his long trip down.</div>

The Palace Guard

<div><B>Murder upstages a Kelling family theatrical production&mdash;and Boston&rsquo;s art sleuths are on the case. &ldquo;The screwball mystery is Charlotte MacLeod&rsquo;s cup of tea&rdquo; (<I>Chicago Tribune</I>).</B><BR />  Producing a Gilbert &amp; Sullivan opera requires a special kind of madness, and the Kelling family is large enough and peculiar enough to undertake an entire company by themselves. For years now, Sarah Kelling&rsquo;s Aunt Emma has supervised these annual productions&mdash;from <I>The Pirates of Penzance</I> to <I>The Mikado</I>&mdash;and this year she has invited her cast of relatives to rehearse <I>The Sorcerer</I> in her stately mansion. The show is nearly ready when a team of burglars drugs the cast and crew to make off with a priceless portrait. Theft or no theft, Aunt Emma insists the show must go on. Even when one of the cast dies suddenly, she finds a replacement and continues rehearsal. But when Sarah begins to suspect the actor was murdered, it becomes clear that dear Aunt Emma may be in danger of taking her final bow.</div>

The Plain Old Man

<div><B>A museum murder puts Boston&rsquo;s married art sleuths to work: &ldquo;The screwball mystery is Charlotte MacLeod&rsquo;s cup of tea&rdquo; (<I>Chicago Tribune</I>).</B><BR /> 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&mdash;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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.</div>

The Odd Job

<div><B>A &ldquo;funny and exciting&rdquo; mystery in the series featuring a husband-and-wife sleuthing team in Boston (<I>Publishers Weekly</I>).</B><BR /><BR /> Boston and its suburbs are stuffed with Kellings, and the city is about to get one more. Sarah Kelling and her husband Max Bittersohn&mdash;a pair of amateur sleuths equally at home in back alleys as they are at black-tie balls&mdash;are about to have a baby. And if the child takes after his parents, he will be one of the cleverest infants in New England. But while Sarah is a month away from giving birth, she cannot let pregnancy slow her down&mdash;she has a murder to solve. A resident at one of Sarah&rsquo;s Uncle Dolph&rsquo;s homeless centers is found mugged and murdered on one of Boston&rsquo;s seedier side streets. Someone at the shelter has been dealing drugs, and plans to frame Uncle Dolph for the murder. Now Sarah and Max must race to clear Dolph&rsquo;s name, lest the newest Kelling arrive before his family honor can be restored.</div>

The Recycled Citizen

<div><B>A Canadian snowstorm and an overturned truck lead to trouble: &ldquo;MacLeod can be counted on for a witty, literate and charming mystery&rdquo; (<I>Publishers Weekly</I>).</B><BR />  Janet Rhys is driving through the backwoods of Canada when she sees the truck ahead of her lose control, smash into a snow bank, and flip sideways, completely blocking the road. Springing to action, she darts into a nearby barn, searching for something to use to rescue the person trapped inside. When she hears an explosion, Janet returns to find the truck is nothing but smoking wreckage, and the driver has stolen her car. Janet takes shelter in an abandoned house, and is waiting for help to come when the truck driver&rsquo;s accomplices set fire to her hideout. Just before she is engulfed in flames, she leaps through a window and escapes into the snow. The killers think their witness is dead, and if Janet doesn&rsquo;t move quickly, they will be right.</div>

A Dismal Thing to Do

<div><b>Seventeen priceless stories from the author often referred to as &ldquo;America&rsquo;s Agatha Christie&rdquo;</b><BR>Charlotte MacLeod&rsquo;s heroes were men and women like Peter Shandy and Sarah Kelling&mdash;genteel sleuths who fight crime with brains, not brawn&mdash;and her settings were the drawing rooms and servants&rsquo; quarters of New England and beyond. With a keen wit and a strong eye for detail, she crafted some of the most memorable victims, murderers, and innocent bystanders of twentieth-century detective novels. In this volume, she proves herself a master of the short story as well. Here is the original Peter Shandy story, featuring the school that would eventually metamorphose into Balaclava Agricultural College. Here is peculiar Cousin Claude, who strangles himself with his own necktie. And here is the tale that answers the question &ldquo;What does Max Bittersohn do when his wife is not around?&rdquo; Whether the characters are familiar or not, the style is irresistible, and the mysteries are as delightfully puzzling as ever.</div>

Apple Books

Grab Bag

<div><B>Antique weather vanes point Peter and Helen Shandy toward a gang of thieves in a mystery that&rsquo;s &ldquo;the ultimate escapism . . . utterly hilarious&rdquo; (<I>Publishers Weekly</I>).</B> The weather vanes of the famous craftsman Praxiteles Lumpkin are one of the great cultural treasures of rural Massachusetts. Helen Shandy, librarian at Balaclava Agricultural College, is roaming the countryside, camera in hand, capturing images of these lovely copper sculptures, trying to give them the attention they deserve. But each time she takes a picture, the featured vane vanishes. Could there be a gang of breezy-minded burglars on her tail? The night after Helen photographs the vane atop the famous Lumpkin soap works, the building burns to the ground. With the help of her husband, Peter, she tries to track the thieves-turned-arsonists. But when the things take a dangerous turn, Helen doesn&rsquo;t need a weather vane to see that a deadly wind is blowing.</div>

Vane Pursuit

<div><B>When the seeds of a mystery are planted, gardening club member Dittany Henbit digs up clues in the cozy series from the international bestselling author.</B><BR />  The Grub-and-Stakers gardening club has traditionally limited its activities to serving tea and gossiping about wildflowers, but when water department supervisor John Architrave is found murdered in the woods, club member Dittany Henbit turns to solving mysteries. After Architrave&rsquo;s will reveals that he bequeathed his ramshackle old house to the Grub-and-Stakers, with instructions for it to be turned into a museum, Dittany resigns herself to weeks of cleaning out the mansion and sorting through donated town &ldquo;artifacts.&rdquo; The task turns interesting, however, the minute bodies start falling from the sky. The new curator is airing out the house&rsquo;s attic when he takes his tumble off the roof. So unlikely is it that he would fall out the tiny attic window, that Dittany has no choice but to attempt to add one captured killer to the young museum&rsquo;s permanent collection.</div>

The Grub-and-Stakers Quilt a Bee

<div><B>The international bestselling author &ldquo;again demonstrates her skill and with incomparable whimsy makes her bucolic puzzles great fun&rdquo; (<I>Publishers Weekly</I>).</B><BR />  Although he towers over his neighbors, Jim Feldster is otherwise unremarkable, except for his mastery of cow milking and his membership in every lodge, rotary club, and brotherhood that Balaclava County has to offer. And anyone who&rsquo;s met his wife, Mirelle, a vicious gossip with a hysterical streak, can understand why he never misses a meeting. But one night their neighbors, the sleuthing academics Peter and Helen Shandy, wake at 2:47 a.m. to the sound of Mirelle screaming. Jim hasn&rsquo;t come home, and she will lose her mind if he isn&rsquo;t found quickly. None of Jim&rsquo;s lodge brothers know where to find him, and Peter&rsquo;s investigation turns up few clues. But when a mystery author comes to town and Mirelle is found murdered, Peter begins to wonder if the master milker is less wholesome than he appears.</div>

Exit the Milkman

<div><B>A copycat crime on Groundhog Day brings out Professor Peter Shandy&rsquo;s inner sleuth in this Edgar Award finalist from the international bestselling author. </B><BR /><BR /> The rural town of Balaclava greets Groundhog Day as an excuse for one last cold-weather fling. The students and faculty of the local agricultural college drink cocoa, throw snowballs, and when the temperature allows, ice skate. But Oozak&rsquo;s Pond is not quite frozen this year, and as the celebrations reach their peak, the students see someone bobbing through the ice. Long past help, the drowning victim is badly decomposed and dressed in an old-fashioned frock coat with a heavy rock in each pocket.<BR /><BR /> First on the scene is Peter Shandy, horticulturalist and&mdash;when the college requires it&mdash;detective. But solving this nineteenth-century murder mystery will take more than Shandy&rsquo;s knack for growing rutabagas. Relying on his wife&rsquo;s expertise in local history, the professor dives headfirst into a gilded-age whodunit that cloaks secrets potent enough to kill.</div>

The Corpse in Oozak's Pond

<div><B>A professor ponders the possibility of an ancient Viking curse while investigating a death by quicklime, in a novel by the Edgar Award&ndash;nominated author.</B> When 105-year-old Hilda Horsefall tells young reporter Cronkite Swope of a stone carved with Norse runes that once sat in the nearby woods, the writer starts salivating at the thought of breaking the news that Vikings once marauded through their sleepy Massachusetts countryside. But while he&rsquo;s jotting down notes, a scream rings out, and Cronkite finds an even bigger story. A farmhand has been burned to death by quicklime, and Cronkite gets an exclusive scoop. In this neck of New England, strange deaths are invariably referred to Prof. Peter Shandy, the only local with the know-how to connect fearsome quicklime to the Vikings of old. But as he digs into the ancient mystery, the professor finds the forgotten Norse gods aren&#39;t above demanding a modern sacrifice.</div>

Wrack and Rune

<div><B>A murder in a yarn store leads to some wild and woolly adventures in this </B><B>&ldquo;energetic and merry&rdquo; mystery (<I>Publishers Weekly</I>).</B><BR />  When word gets out that Dittany Monk, the sleuthing gardener of Lobelia Falls, is expecting twins, every knitter in town races to Miss Jane Fuzzywuzzy&rsquo;s Yarnery to begin work on a complete wardrobe of hats, booties, and tiny sweaters. One customer, however, has even more urgent business: the man with the gunshot wounds in his back. The victim stumbles out of a bullet-ridden car, dripping blood all over the freshly cleaned sidewalk, and dies with a peculiar phrase on his lips: &ldquo;The raveled sleeve!&rdquo; Before Miss Jane can offer advice on how to rescue an unraveling sweater, her unfortunate customer expires. To ensure her twins can be raised in a safe hometown, Dittany will have to get the yarn-store murder sewn up.</div>

The Grub-and-Stakers Spin a Yarn

<div><B>The curtains almost close on an actor in this cozy gardening club mystery featuring amateur sleuth Dittany Henbit and her husband, Osbert Monk. </B><BR />   When Jenson Thorbisher-Freep announces an amateur theatrical contest, the women in the Grub-and-Stake gardening club race to join in. They enlist Osbert Monk as their playwright&mdash;not only is he married to their club leader Dittany Monk, but he&rsquo;s famous the world over as Lex Laramie, bestselling novelist of Westerns. Taking the legend of Dangerous Dan McGrew as his inspiration, Osbert delivers a rough draft faster than the Pony Express. Now all the Grub-and-Stakers have to do is cast it. To play McGrew, Dittany picks town cad Andrew McNaster, who has recently improved his manners in an attempt to woo Osbert&rsquo;s aunt, Arethusa. The gunslinger&rsquo;s performance gets a bit too real on opening night, though, when his prop bullets are replaced with real ones, and claim the toe of a fellow thespian. Is McNaster as nice as he pretends to be? Or has he taken his part too close to heart, and decided to become very dangerous indeed? </div>

The Grub-and-Stakers Pinch a Poke

<div><B>A supposedly haunted house contains even more frightening secrets among the living in this cozy mystery from the international bestselling author.</B><BR />  Holly Howe is just beginning to succeed in in the cutthroat world of New York modeling when a car accident ruins her good looks forever and she is forced to retreat to the backwoods of Canada, to recuperate in her brother&rsquo;s ramshackle country house. But Howe Hill is a wreck&mdash;dusty, ugly, and utterly lacking in modern facilities&mdash;and her brother is no more hospitable. So when Holly hears of a job in town taking care of Mrs. Partlett, an elderly, widowed invalid, she leaps at the opportunity. If nothing else, the Partlett mansion must have indoor plumbing. But Holly soon finds that while Cliff House is eerie by day, it&rsquo;s terrifying by night. The other housekeeper is convinced it&rsquo;s haunted by the ghost of Mr. Partlett, but Holly fears no poltergeist. It&rsquo;s the old widow in the upstairs room that frightens her&mdash;and the secrets that lurk behind her dull, silver eyes.</div>

The Terrible Tide

<div><B>A couple finds an antique mirror that isn&rsquo;t broken, but still brings bad luck&mdash;&ldquo;MacLeod can be counted on for a witty, literate, and charming mystery&rdquo; (<I>Publishers Weekly</I>).</B><BR />  According to Max Bittersohn, he and Sarah Kelling have witnessed enough murder and unhappiness, so it&rsquo;s high time they got married. And though Sarah hasn&rsquo;t yet agreed to such drastic measures, she invites Max to summer with her at Ireson&rsquo;s Landing. But they haven&rsquo;t been in the house ten minutes when they stumble upon summer&rsquo;s first mystery&mdash;a mint-condition, antique Spanish mirror that is tremendously rare and valuable. Sarah has never seen it before and she doesn&rsquo;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&rsquo;s Landing, Sarah and her beau try to uncover the mystery of the Bilbao looking glass&mdash;a quest that is disrupted when a vicious next-door neighbor is found hacked to death with a woodshed ax. By summer&rsquo;s end, Sarah and Max will learn that some murders can be solved simply by looking in the mirror.</div>

The Bilbao Looking Glass

<div><B>Boston&rsquo;s married art sleuths are about to discover that you can&rsquo;t fake a murder: &ldquo;Entertaining . . . good humored . . . Sarah and Max are a winning team&rdquo; (<I>Baltimore Sun</I>).</B><BR />  If she weren&rsquo;t so fabulous, the Countess Lydia Ouspenska might be considered a gangster&rsquo;s moll. The last time she met Max Bittersohn, Boston&rsquo;s famed art-fraud investigator, she was forging minute Byzantine masterpieces to make ends meet. But when Max bumps into her on the Common, the Countess is back on her feet. She has taken up with Bartolo Arbalest, a master forger currently masquerading as an art restorer. And as Bittersohn knows all too well, even the most genteel fraudster cannot be trusted. With the help of his wife, Sarah, Max looks for the secret lair of Bartolo&rsquo;s supposed restoration guild. But when the guild&rsquo;s clients begin to die, it becomes clear there is more at stake than a few fabricated icons. The art may be fake, but for Max and Sarah the danger is very real.</div>

The Resurrection Man

<div><B>An aging stripper&rsquo;s fresh corpse turns up in an old family tomb at Boston Common in this &ldquo;first-rate suspense whodunit&rdquo; (<I>The <I>Cincinnati Post</I></I><I>).</I></B><BR />  <BR /> Like many old New England families, the Kellings live to die. Although their family vault is spacious and comfortable, it will not do for Sarah Kelling&rsquo;s Great-Uncle Frederick. In his will, he demands to be buried inside the ancient family tomb at Boston Common, which hasn&rsquo;t admitted a new member in over a century. But when the Kellings crack the old vault&rsquo;s door, they find a recently built brick wall&mdash;and behind it lays a surprisingly fresh corpse, a skeleton with rubies in its teeth.<BR /><BR /> Her name was Ruby Redd, and many years ago she was the toast of Boston&rsquo;s burlesque scene. Her murder case is ice cold, but when Sarah begins investigating it, she finds that the fiery passions behind Ruby&rsquo;s death still burn white hot. With the help of art-fraud investigator Max Bittersohn, Sarah will solve the mystery of the stripper&rsquo;s murder&mdash;or take her own place in the family vault.</div>

The Family Vault

<div><B>A poisoned potpie pulls botanist Peter Shandy into a local Maine mystery in the series that &ldquo;offers a blooming good time&rdquo; (<I>The Baltimore Sun</I>).</B><BR />  Massachusetts horticulturalist Peter Shandy is famous for his rutabagas, but he comes to Maine with a loftier plant in mind. Specifically, he wants to size up the world-renowned lupines of Frances Rondel, a nonagenarian whose legendary flowers are even more beautiful in life than they are in myth. Shandy is bitterly jealous, but finds a major distraction in the dining room of the country inn where he&rsquo;s staying. He may grow wretched lupines, but no gardener can solve a murder like Peter Shandy. The corpse belongs to the late Jasper Flodge, a local loudmouth with a toupee and a sizeable gut. Shoveling down the last bites of a chicken potpie, Flodge clutches his chest and falls dead. Suddenly with more to do than stopping to smell the lupines, Shandy must ask himself: Which Maine cook has the bad taste to flavor chicken with cyanide?</div>

Something in the Water

<div><B>At Balaclava Agricultural College, a kidnapping and pig-napping are followed by murder</B> Newlyweds Peter and Helen Shandy are picking out flatware when a pair of gun-toting hooligans bursts into the silversmith&rsquo;s shop, emptying the safe and leaving with Helen as their hostage. Although the police recover Helen quickly, her professor husband is badly shaken by the ordeal. Early the next morning, the college&rsquo;s head of animal husbandry frantically reports another hostage situation in progress. Belinda, the school&rsquo;s beloved sow, has been kidnapped, and only Peter can bring home the bacon.   There&rsquo;s a possible witness to the pig-napping in Miss Flackley, the farrier, but before she can point Peter toward the vanished porker, she&rsquo;s found dead in the barn&rsquo;s mash feeder. By the time Peter discovers the link between the two heists, pigs may really fly.</div>

The Luck Runs Out

<div><B>Professor Peter Shandy returns in &ldquo;a high-flying farce with humor that ranges from broad slapstick to quiet witticisms. . . . This murder most fowl is a hoot&rdquo; (<I>Publishers Weekly</I>).</B><BR />  Emory Emmerick comes to Balaclava Agricultural University as a scout for a television station. Although the faculty and students are hardly ready for prime time, Emmerick&rsquo;s interest is in environmental programming&mdash;a subject that inspires even the driest Balaclava professor to wax poetic. In his search for material, Emmerick joins Peter Shandy and a few of his colleagues on the annual owl-count. And though the television producer&rsquo;s loud mouth and heavy feet make him a dismal birdwatcher, none of the academics expect him to make a fatal blunder. Chasing what appears to be a badly lost snowy owl, Emmerick stumbles into a trap that yanks him into a tree. By the time the professors reach him, he&rsquo;s been stabbed to death. Discovering that the snowy owl was nothing more than a handful of feathers attached to a fishing pole, Shandy concludes that Emmerick was murdered. Plenty of people might like to kill a television producer, but which would-be killer had the gall to make the helpless <I>Nyctea scandiaca </I>an accomplice?</div>

An Owl Too Many

<div><B>A horticulturist and amateur sleuth roots out an irritating professor&rsquo;s killer in the Nero Award&ndash;winning mystery series.</B><BR />  An unpleasant man in every respect, university professor Herbert Ungley is exceedingly vain. One morning, his landlady catches her cat coming in with Ungley&rsquo;s hairpiece between its teeth. It&rsquo;s clear something has happened to the old grouch, because he would never be caught without his toupee. Ungley is found in the yard behind his social club, with his head bashed in and his baldness plain for the world to see. Although the police are content to call it an accident, sleuthing horticulturalist Peter Shandy is unconvinced, and finds there are too many unanswered questions: How did Ungley come to have such a bulging bank account? Who was Ungley&rsquo;s long-lost heir, and what did he have to do with the professor&rsquo;s lost hair? And whose is the second body in the woods? Shandy must answer these questions and more if he&rsquo;s to discover who pulled the rug out from the balding corpse.</div>

Something the Cat Dragged In

<div><B>A young woman investigates the death of her wealthy, estranged father in a small Rhode Island town in this novel by the author of the Peter Shandy Mysteries.</B><BR /><BR /> Murder can happen anywhere, even in sleepy Meldrum, Rhode Island. And while the town&rsquo;s old-money families may prefer to sweep such unseemliness under their Oriental rugs, its newest resident can think of nothing else. Nineteen-year-old Jenny Cirak has moved into the house her father, a once-famous movie producer, willed to her. She&rsquo;s also using an assumed name, just like he did when he lived&mdash;and died&mdash;in Meldrum. But why did he leave a fortune to the child he abandoned . . . and what really killed him?<BR />  <BR /> Hoping to make sense of the father she never knew, Jenny must get to know his neighbors and expose their secrets and feuds. Somewhere among this cast of characters, which includes a retired corporate accountant from Baltimore who shows up on her doorstep with a clue, is a person who knows the truth&mdash;and will do anything to keep Cirak&rsquo;s daughter from uncovering it.<BR />  <BR /> From the acclaimed author of the Sarah Kelling and Max Bittersohn series and other popular mysteries, this is a twisting tale of small-town secrets and suspense.<BR />  </div>

Cirak's Daughter

<div><B>Before Agatha Christie, there was America&rsquo;s Mistress of Mystery. This is the story of her life and creative legacy, from the butler who did it to Batman.</B><BR /><BR /> In the decades since her death in 1958, master storyteller Mary Roberts Rinehart has often been compared to Agatha Christie. But while Rinehart was once a household name, today she is largely forgotten. The woman who first proclaimed &ldquo;the butler did it&rdquo; was writing for publication years before Christie&rsquo;s work saw the light of day. She also practiced nursing, became a war correspondent, and wrote a novel&mdash;<I>The Bat</I>&mdash;that inspired Bob Kane&rsquo;s creation of Batman.<BR /><BR /> Born in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania, before it was absorbed into Pittsburgh, and raised in a close-knit Presbyterian family, Mary Roberts was at once a girl of her time&mdash;dutiful, God-fearing, loyal&mdash;and a quietly rebellious spirit. For every hour she spent cooking, cleaning, or sewing at her mother&rsquo;s behest while her &ldquo;frail&rdquo; younger sister had fun, Mary eked out her own moments of planning, dreaming, and writing. But becoming an author wasn&rsquo;t on her radar . . . yet.<BR /><BR /> Bestselling mystery writer Charlotte MacLeod grew up on Rinehart&rsquo;s artfully crafted novels, such as the enormously successful <I>The Circular Staircase</I>&mdash;&ldquo;cozies&rdquo; before the concept existed. After years of seeing Christie celebrated and Rinehart overlooked, MacLeod realized that it was time to delve into how this seemingly ordinary woman became a sensation whose work would grace print, stage, and screen. From Rinehart&rsquo;s grueling training as a nurse and her wartime interviews with a young Winston Churchill and Queen Mary to her involvement with the Blackfoot Indians and her work as doctor&rsquo;s wife, mother of three, playwright, serialist, and novelist, this is the unforgettable story of America&rsquo;s Grande Dame of Mystery.</div>

Had She But Known

<div><B>A historical mystery set in early twentieth-century New England from the acclaimed author of the Peter Shandy series.</B><BR /><BR /> Upon graduating from an academy for respectable young ladies, Lavinia Tabard heads to the New England countryside and her rich cousin Zilpha&rsquo;s summer cottage with the low expectations of a charity case. Lavinia intends to endure Zilpha&rsquo;s saccharine sweetness and her &ldquo;companion&rdquo; Tetsy&rsquo;s bullying ways only until she can plan an escape that doesn&rsquo;t involve marriage.<BR />  <BR /> A welcome distraction comes when, as she works on a grave rubbing at the local cemetery, Lavinia notices something strange about the dates on the stone. Her questions lead to the doorsteps of several interesting neighbors, including a self-made young architect with a temper as fiery as his red hair. Hayward Clinton and his partner have an office on Zilpha&rsquo;s property, an awkward situation that won&rsquo;t change until the mysterious disappearance of the business&rsquo;s original owner is solved. It&rsquo;s a case too curious for Lavinia to resist&mdash;but someone will stop at nothing to ensure that she does.<BR />  <BR /><I>King Devil</I> is an entertaining tale of suspense from the acclaimed author of the Peter Shandy Mysteries, as well as the Boston-set Sarah Kelling and Max Bittersohn series.<BR /><BR />  </div>

King Devil

<div><B>The first three cozy mysteries in a series featuring a Royal Canadian Mountie and his resourceful wife from an international-bestselling author.</B><BR /><BR /> The beloved sleuthing couple solves a trio of murder cases in the austere beauty of Canada&rsquo;s New Brunswick. Originally published under the pseudonym Alisa Craig, these three tales are a witty look at murder in a small town&mdash;&ldquo;the epitome of the &lsquo;cozy&rsquo; mystery&rdquo; (<I>Mostly Murder</I>).<BR />  <BR /><I>A Pint of Murder</I>: When Janet Wadman realizes her friend Agatha was murdered with a jar of tainted green beans, her discovery leads to another untimely death. Height-challenged Mountie Madoc Rhys proves more capable than he looks, and Janet is duly impressed.<BR />  <BR /><I>Murder Goes Mumming</I>: Madoc decides to ask Janet for her hand in marriage. But when the newly engaged couple finds their Christmas plans spoiled by murder, the investigating duo once again finds they have a gift for serving justice.<BR />  <BR /><I>A Dismal Thing to Do</I>: Janet witnesses a terrible accident on the back roads of Canada. But after dashing into a nearby barn to get help, someone thanks her by stealing her car and then trying to kill her. Or were they? Madoc arrives and together they work to stop a deadly crime wave in its tracks.<BR /><BR /><BR />  </div>

The Madoc and Janet Rhys Mysteries Volume One

<div><B>Have yourself a mysterious little Christmas with fifteen whodunits from <I>New York Times</I>&ndash;bestselling authors Sharyn McCrumb, Mary Higgins Clark, and more! </B><BR /><BR /> Peace on Earth isn&rsquo;t everyone&rsquo;s cup of tea in Charlotte MacLeod&rsquo;s &ldquo;A Cozy for Christmas.&rdquo; <BR /><BR /> Peter Lovesey&rsquo;s &ldquo;The Haunted Crescent&rdquo; delivers a holiday ghost story with a twist.<BR /><BR /> A training session for department-store Santas turns up Saint Nicks who are anything but angels in Isaac Asimov&rsquo;s &ldquo;Ho, Ho, Ho.&rdquo;<BR /><BR /> Marcia Muller&rsquo;s &ldquo;Silent Night&rdquo; finds a tough private investigator searching San Francisco&rsquo;s Tenderloin district&mdash;and discovering something unexpected.<BR /><BR /> A long-married couple&rsquo;s ship finally comes in&mdash;only to spring a mysterious leak&mdash;in Mary Higgins Clark&rsquo;s &ldquo;That&rsquo;s the Ticket.&rdquo;<BR /><BR /> Scottish superstition catches up with a cat burglar in Sharyn McCrumb&rsquo;s &ldquo;A Wee Doch and Doris.&rdquo;<BR /><BR /> These and many more stories will keep you turning pages and gathering evidence of yuletide mayhem. So when holiday shopping brings out your inner Grinch, hunker down with a hot toddy&mdash;and leave the murder to the experts.<BR /><BR /><I>This festive collection includes stories by Charlotte MacLeod, Peter Lovesey, Dorothy Salisbury Davis, Eric Wright, John Lutz, Howard Engel, Mary Higgins Clark, Bill Pronzini, Sharyn McCrumb, Henry Slesar, Edward D. Hoch, Aaron Elkins, Susan Dunlap, Isaac Asimov, and Marcia Muller.</I></div>

Mistletoe Mysteries

<div><B>A young woman must escape family conflict&mdash;and find her own identity&mdash;in order to track down a thief in this novel by an acclaimed mystery writer.</B><BR /><BR /> Persis Green&rsquo;s existence has been overshadowed by the looming prospect of her older sister&rsquo;s wedding. Her family was once normal&mdash;boring, but normal. Then the engagement was announced and all hell broke loose. Now, Persis&rsquo;s father acts like a zombie at dinner parties, her mother goes from zero to shrieking in seconds, and her sister is utterly self-absorbed.<BR />  <BR /> When Persis wins a statewide piano competition and a scholarship to a prestigious music conservatory, her big news is pushed aside. In addition to the general chaos of the impending nuptials, one of her sister&rsquo;s wedding gifts, a wildly expensive piece of jewelry, has disappeared.<BR />  <BR /> Feeling like the only sane member of the family, Persis commits her cool head to solving the mystery. But there are other surprises she&rsquo;ll discover in the course of her investigation in this absorbing tale by the author of the popular Sarah Kelling and Max Bittersohn series.<BR />  </div>

Maid of Honor

<div><P><B>When the weather outside is frightful, curl up with <I>New York Times</I>&ndash;bestselling masters of holiday mystery Elizabeth Peters, Margaret Maron, and more!</B><BR /><BR /> A New England college hosts a counterfeiting scrooge, an angelic chorister falls to earth, a tight-fisted patriarch realizes his days are numbered, and a politician presents his wife with an explosive gift. In <I>Christmas Stalkings</I>, bestselling mystery author Charlotte MacLeod gathers fellow partners in crime for a collection of capers that will keep you reading&mdash;and guessing&mdash;all through the night.<BR /><BR /> Spend the twelve days of Christmas enjoying tales of holiday mayhem. From secrets in a snowy graveyard to schemes in the Deep South to mischief in Manhattan, this stocking full of cozy stories is to die for.<BR /><BR /><I>This festive anthology includes thirteen stories by Charlotte MacLeod, Reginald Hill, Elizabeth Peters, Medora Sale, John Malcolm, Dorothy Cannell, Bill Crider, Patricia Moyes, Evelyn E. Smith, Eric Wright, Mickey Friedman, Robert Barnard, and Margaret Maron.</I></P></div>

Christmas Stalkings

<div><B>A young art student catches a thief&mdash;and finds her soul mate&mdash;in this charming, early YA novel from the million-selling &ldquo;mistress of the &lsquo;cozy&rsquo; mystery&rdquo; (<I>Los Angeles Times</I>).</B><BR />  <BR /> Possessed of cool common sense and burning ambition, nineteen-year-old Corin Johansen leaves home to attend a prestigious art school in Boston. But Corin never met anyone back in Proctor&rsquo;s Crossing, Pennsylvania, like the larger-than-life landlady at her new boardinghouse. A former circus star known as Daring Dina who trained lions and leopards under the big top, Madame Despau-Davy now contents herself with teaching her four beloved pet ocelots tricks in the kitchen.<BR />  <BR /> Corin soon learns the boardinghouse kitchen is supposedly haunted by the ghost of the Fat Lady from the circus, Dina&rsquo;s old friend Rosie Garside. Corin is skeptical, but when she cooks, she can&rsquo;t shake the feeling she&rsquo;s being watched.<BR />  <BR /> The tall redhead has also caught the eye of some of the young male boarders: playboy Jack Banks and standoffish but gifted art student Alex Bodmin. When Corin discovers jewelry hidden in the haunted kitchen and hears the real story of how Rosie met her demise, she begins to suspect one of them may be a jewel thief&mdash;and possibly a murderer.</div>

The Fat Lady's Ghost

<div><B>The first three novels featuring the sleuthing Boston couple: “The screwball mystery is Charlotte MacLeod’s cup of tea.” —<I>Chicago Tribune</I></B><br/><br/>Packed with wit, simmering romance, and complicated crimes, the whodunits in this delightfully cozy collection from the two-time Edgar Award finalist include:<br/><br/><B><I>The Family Vault</I></B><br/><br/>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” (<I>The Cincinnati Post</I>).<br/><br/> <br/><br/><B><I>The Withdrawing Room</I></B><br/><br/>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.” —<I>Sojourner</I><br/><br/><B><I>The Palace Guard</I></B><br/><br/>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</div>

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Charlotte MacLeod
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