The Gladstone Bag by Charlotte MacLeod

I'm fairly certain that I picked this book up at a garage sale. Or a thrift store? I had it on my TBR shelves for about 2 years before I finally picked it up. And it's taken me a LONG time to get through it. Not that it was bad, it just kept putting me to sleep. It's the first in the series for me and, based on the name of the series, I'm assuming that the main character in this book is not the recurring detective. Which I actually really like as a plot conceit (and still do on re-read when I'm working through the series.) Rather, it is Sarah's Aunt Emma who is involved in a mystery.

Emma seems to be your stock New England older woman from a small town; pragmatic, part of the community. She is heavily involved in the local theater and, when a friend asks Emma to act as hostess for a group of artists and writers on an island, Emma takes along the costume jewelry to make some repairs.

Well, on the ferry, Emma is drugged and her bag disappears. But it quickly shows up in the men's restroom. Why was the bag taken? And why has a mysterious man with amnesia shown up on the island? A man who soon dies. And who are are these strange people that have been invited to the island? Including one man who calls himself "Count" and wants to search for treasures and a woman who is supposedly psychic who is suddenly not feeling well enough to come out of her room?

Page 147: "I've noticed the strap's getting a bit chewed" "Aren't we all?"

Four stars

This book came out February 1, 1990

Follows The Silver Ghost

Followed by The Resurrection Man

Hard copy I didn't keep

Opinions are my own

The Silver Ghost by Charlotte MacLeod

Max and Sarah are attending... some sort of function. I started this book awhile ago and it really didn't hold my interest. But there's a lot going on at this thing. Morris dancers, big dinners, the theft of some valuable cars and a murder. The solution seemed rather convoluted and depended on a plot device that has since been disproven but we got to see a bit more in the life of the Bittersohns and the eccentricities that surround them. 

Three stars

This book came out December 7th, 1987

Follows The Recycled Citizen

Followed by The Gladstone Bag

Hard copy I didn't keep

Opinions are my own

The Recycled Citizen by Charlotte MacLeod

Sarah is about eight months pregnant but she and Max are still out and about even visiting the Senior Center her cousins Dolph and Mary run. It is somewhat a charity but really allows homeless seniors a place to stay that is warm and dry. They can volunteer to earn things like stockings (most of them preferring not to get money) or they can bring in recycling that the center can then turn in for money. In a previous book, Dolph had inherited a house stuffed-full of ... well, stuff. In this book, our favorite characters decide to auction off all of that stuff in order to raise money for the center and the warehouse they are turning into housing. Unfortunately, one of the seniors has been found dead by an apparent mugging and it sends them all down a rabbit hole.
The storyline was engaging and character development lovely. The mystery itself was... well, just an odd solution but in line with the rest of the books in the series.

Three stars

This book came out in 1988

Follows The Plain Old Man

Followed by The Silver Ghost 

Hard copy I didn't keep

Opinions are my own

The Plain Old Man by Charlotte MacLeod

I didn't like the last book in the series very much because there was a decided lack of Sarah. This book balanced that with a decided lack of Max. It was an interesting premise but I have to admit, I missed the other person in each book. Though Sarah's family is always a nice mix that keeps the story moving. Overall, this was a fun book that, once you got through the beginning chapters, kept things moving right along.
In this book, her cousin Emma is the spearhead of the local community theater. Sarah has been called down to help out painting the scenes and doing other work. The regular players are all in attendance including the fresh-faced ingenue whose father is an aging roue and whose mother has mostly resigned herself to her lot in life. Then there is the slightly-older-than-the ingenue who is seemingly involved with the roue. There is also a plain old man who has been out with gout but has recently been able to rejoin the group. Too bad he dies in a bathroom fall shortly thereafter. But his childhood friend suspects that it wasn't quite the accident it seems. And since that friend is another of Sarah's relatives, she is pulled in to investigate that case as well as the disappearance of a family portrait worth a lot of money.

Three stars
Follows The Convivial Codfish
Followed by The Recycled Citizen
This book came out October 28th, 1986
Borrowed this book from the library
Opinions are my own

The Convivial Codfish by Charlotte MacLeod

Not a lot of Sarah in this book and I definitely felt her absence. Instead, the focus is Max as he infiltrates a Christmas party hosted by one of the men in the Comrades of the Convivial Codfish, Tom Tolbathy. He does it to help out one of Sarah’s many uncles, Jeremy. It seems that Jeremy, who is the current Exalted Chowderhead, lost the ceremonial chain at a recent Dickens Christmas Carol dinner. Jem can’t go to the party himself because he fell down the stairs at his house and broke his hip, very nearly his head. Max is sent in his place to see if he can recognize the chain. And he does but the party (on a train, by the way, so cool) goes horribly wrong when the train stops suddenly. Tom’s brother is found dead and the rest of the party starts failing, a result of poisoning. 

Lots of big words which are great for vocabulary building and a good story but not fairly clued - even the last big hint is kept cloaked. And the relationship between Sarah and Max is one of the draws of the series but it was almost nonexistent in the book.

Three stars
Follows The Bilbao Looking Glass
Followed by The Plain Old Man
This book came out 1984
Borrowed this book from the library
Opinions are my own

The Bilbao Looking Glass by Charlotte MacLeod

Sarah and Max are still trying to finalize their relationship. Sarah's cousin and his new wife have taken over running her boarding house so she's at the summer home and Max has come with her (but he is staying circumspectly in the carriage house.)  Too bad the "summer folks" have decied to stick their noses in Sarah's business even to the point of convincing her rather flighty and flittering aunt to show up early so the pair don't get the alone time they were hoping for. Max and Sarah go to a party where Alice B., the companion of one of the wealthiest women, drops a remark designed to put a wedge between Max and Sarah. And it works, temporarily, but then Alice B. is found dead, killed by an ax, and a Kelling & Bittersohn mystery starts in earnest.

There is a LOT of anti-Semitism from the "summer folks" in this book; it was in line with the characters that MacLeod created and starts off slow but builds to some truly reprehensible remarks. If you are a regular reader of classic mysteries, the "bad guy" isn't hard to guess but MacLeod does drop in some really good red herrings. And for such a short book, the characters, including those we may never see again (flight Aunt Appie, her grasping son Lionel and his four wild sons, Lionel's wife Vaney who is experimenting with lesbianism (a slur about this is also used by one of the sons), the groundskeeper Lomax and his shiftless nephew Peter.)

Three stars
Follows The Palace Guard
Followed by The Convivial Codfish
This book came out 1983
Borrowed this book from the library
Opinions are my own

The Palace Guard by Charlotte MacLeod

Max and Sarah have been spending a lot of time together. He has a lot of free passes to various events (at least that's what he's telling Sarah) so they've been stepping out. Too bad an evening of music at Madam's (a building the Kellings have a fraught history with the building's original owner) is ruined when one of the security guards plummets off a balcony to the floor below. One of Sarah's many cousins is substituting in as another guard. He is able to tell them some of the behind the scenes information. When another guard dies though, this time by paint remover put into the alcohol bottle he kept hidden in his locker, it all starts to get very, very serious. 

A quick read - we get to learn more about Max and Sarah and the mystery is sound. Unfortunately, there is some casual racism in the book which made me uncomfortable and I'm hoping it doesn't continue in future books. 

Three stars
Follows The Withdrawing Room
Followed by The Bilbao Looking Glass
This book came out July 1st, 1981
Borrowed this book from the library
Opinions are my own

The Withdrawing Room by Charlotte MacLeod

Sarah Kelling is broke. Or pretty close to it. She is a recent widow and still rather young (at least that's what I am gathering; somehow I missed that this was the second book in the series and felt like I was missing a lot of information. Some slowly trickled in but it took awhile.) In an effort to keep her husband's family manor, she decides to take on boarders. When one of her boarders is killed in a subway accident, it is almost a relief as the man was decidedly unpleasant. But when another boarder dies, people start to believe there might be something more going on. Especially Max Bittersohn who worked with Sarah on a previous mystery.
A good story but I did feel lost for a lot of it. And Max doesn't even feature much in this book even though the series is Kelling and Bittersohn. He shows up halfway through and then is absent, apparently investigating, for quite a bit at the end.

Three stars
Followed by The Palace Guard
This book came out October 1st, 2002
Borrowed this book from the library
Opinions are my own