The Terrible Tide

Cliff House may be haunted, but no ghost is as scary as the women who live there.

Holly Howe is just beginning to get traction in the cutthroat world of New York modeling when a car accident ruins her good looks forever. She retreats to the backwoods of Canada, to recuperate in her brother's ramshackle country house. Howe Hill is a wreck-dusty, ugly and utterly lacking in modern facilities-and her brother is no more hospitable. When she hears of a job in town taking care of an ancient invalid, Holly leaps on it. If nothing else, Cliff House must have indoor plumbing.

Eerie by day, the invalid's mansion is terrifying by night. The other housekeeper is convinced it's haunted by the old woman's husband, but Holly fears no poltergeist. It's the old widow in the upstairs room that frightens her-and the secrets that lurk behind her dull, silver eyes.

Review quotes.

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

"The screwball mystery is Charlotte MacLeod's cup of tea." - Chicago Tribune.

"Charm, wit, and Holmesian logic." - Audiofile.

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.