The Recycled Citizen

A homeless man's murder threatens to destroy the Kelling Family.

Boston and its suburbs are stuffed with Kellings, and the city is about to get one more. Sarah Kelling and her husband Max Bittersohn - a pair of amateur sleuths equally at home in back alleys as they are at black-tie balls - 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 - she has a murder to solve.

A resident at one of Sarah's Uncle Dolph's homeless centers is found mugged and murdered on one of Boston'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's name, lest the newest Kelling arrive before his family honor can be restored.

Review Quotes.

"Funny and exciting." - Publishers Weekly.

"The epitome of the 'cozy' mystery." - Mostly Murder.

"MacLeod can be counted on for a witty, literate and charming mystery." - Publishers Weekly.

Biographical note.

Charlotte MacLeod (1922-2005) was an internationally bestselling author of cozy mysteries. Born in Canada, she moved to Boston as a child, and lived in New England most of her life. After graduating from college, she made a career in advertising, writing copy for the Stop & Shop Supermarket Company before moving on to Boston firm N. H. Miller & Co., where she rose to the rank of vice president. In her spare time, MacLeod wrote short stories, and in 1964 published her first novel, a children's book called "Mystery of the White Knight."

In "Rest You Merry" (1978), MacLeod introduced Professor Peter Shandy, a horticulturist and amateur sleuth whose adventures she would chronicle for two decades. "The Family Vault" (1979) marked the first appearance of her other best-known characters: the husband and wife sleuthing team Sarah Kelling and Max Bittersohn, whom she followed until her last novel, "The Balloon Man," in 1998.