With the help of private detective Max Bittersohn, it's up to Sarah Kelling to hold the shocked family together, and try to find out what happened. What they unravel is a complex murder plot that not only stretches into the past, but also has Sarah marked as a victim!
***
A gruesome murder leads Professor Peter Shandy to uncover an ancient Viking curse.
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'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 Professor 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, he finds the forgotten Norse gods are not above demanding a modern sacrifice.
***
Professor Peter Shandy is in trouble up to the eyeballs again. With the Annual Competition of the Balaclava County Draft Horse Association coming up, some saboteur has reversed all the horseshoes nailed to the stable doors of Balaclava Agricultural College as good luck charms. Shandy predicts dire happenings. His predictions are nowhere near dire enough.
***
Sarah Kelling and new husband Max Bittersohn are called in by Jeremy Kelling when his Great Chain of the Convivial Cod vanishes. The emblem represents his great achievement, the office of Exalted Chowderhead over the Annual Scrooge Day revels of the Comrades of the Convivial Codfish. When Jeremy falls victim to a seemingly vicious prank, the couple suspect murder.
***
Herbert Ungley wouldn't have been caught dead without his toupée. When a cat dragged it in, landlady Betsy Lomax knew something was amiss. She knew to call Professor Peter Shandy, whose success at sleuthing had surpassed his fame as 'Father of the world-renowned rutabaga', the "Balaclava Buster".
The 'Hercule Poirot' of the turnip fields finds himself knee-deep in unanswered questions: who was Herbert's heir? Where had his shockingly large bank account come from? Why was another body planted among the trees of Balaclava college? Would Peter be able to root out the killer?
***
They're all ready to pop out of this potpourri of perilous predicaments from the Queen of the Whimsical Whodunit. Featuring all her favorite sleuths - Max Bittersohn and Sarah Kelling, Professor Peter Shandy, August Fox - and the eccentric enclaves of New England's cities and countryside, these short stories are packed with wacky, wonderful humor and good old-fashioned suspense.
There's murder in a massage parlor, dreadful doings at a British dinner party, larceny for sale at a general store, sinister schemes at Balaclava College, and merry mayhem from Boston to Maine - in this grab bag of fun-filled mysteries, which includes five never-before-published tales of murder most foul.
Contents:
• Homecoming (Sarah Kelling and Max Bittersohn)
• Monique
• Rest You Merry (Peter Shandy)
• Fifty Acres of Prime Seaweed
• It Was an Awful Shame
• The Mysterious Affair of the Beaird-Wynnington Dirigible Airship (Augustus Fox)
• A Snatch in Time
• Clean Slate
• The Felonious Courtship of Miles Peabody
• Force of Habit
• Better a Cat
• Lady Patterly’s Lover
• Journey for Lady G.
• Assignment: Marriage
• More Like Martine
• The Dastardly Dilemma of the Vicious Vaudevillian (Augustus Fox)
***
With husband Max away in Argentina, Sarah Kelling plans to do a killer job of relaxing at her shorefront home. Then a real killer foils her plans when the administrator of Boston's Wilkins Museum is murdered with a lovely antique hat pin. Named executor of the will, Sarah must find the murderer--before her own life is added to the murderer's collection. HC: Mysterious Press.
***
Sarah Kelling and her husband, Max Bittersohn, have joined the rest of the Kelling clan to plan a black-tie charity auction with the proceeds going to the Senior Citizens' Recycling Center. But soon one of the Center's members is killed, and the Kelling clan enlists Sarah and Max to solve the mystery and save the Kelling name.
***
Sarah Kelling's Aunt Emma leaps at the chance to stay at her old friend Adelaide's summer place, enjoying a quiet time repairing some stage jewelry while keeping an eye on the artists and writers who'll be occupying adelaide's six guest cottages. On the ferry, Emma's gladstone bag is temporarily stolen. Could someone have mistaken those junk jewels for real diamonds? She meets her guests-to-be who inform her they plan to dig for Pocapuk's legendary pirate treasure without having bothered to get Adelaide's permission. On the island, her bag is heisted again, a trespassing scuba diver is found dead, and a mysterious stranger is off on a rampage of attempted murders. Emma enlists niece Sarah and her husband, Max Bittersohn, for a spot of long-distance detecting.