This image is the cover for the book Sarah Kelling and Max Bittersohn Mysteries Volume One, The Sarah Kelling and Max Bittersohn Mysteries

Sarah Kelling and Max Bittersohn Mysteries Volume One, The Sarah Kelling and Max Bittersohn Mysteries

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

Charlotte MacLeod

Charlotte MacLeod (1922–2005) was an international 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.