A Pint of Murder

By Charlotte MacLeod

A killer wielding poisonous green beans terrorizes a small Canadian town.

Agatha Treadway has done her own preserving ever since the day her husband was done in by a can of supermarket tomatoes. And after four vigilant decades canning everything from peaches to spinach, it is her own green beans that kill her. Inspecting the fatal jar, Janet Wadman finds it has been tampered with, so that toxic botulism was allowed to seep in. But before she can tell the town doctor that Mrs. Treadway was murdered, the doctor joins the widow in untimely death.

To investigate, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police sends Madoc Rhys, a Mountie who doesn't look the part. Masquerading as a relative, this squat Welshman helps Janet dig into the town's dark side. And what they find is a deadly secret that proves even more poisonous than botulism.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Head of Zeus
• Release date: Jun 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781784086961

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.

Reviews for A Pint of Murder

[condorena · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is one of those stories that has it's characters all busier than beavers with chores and jobs and whatnot ,so that you get exhausted before you get to the end of the book. Naturally creating a timeline of who was where when is an exercise in futility.

[bjace_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

In rural New Brunswick, the murder of an old lady (followed by the accidental death of her doctor) upset the community and puts one of the leading families under a microscope. The story is fun, but the motive for the crime is a little farfetched. It says a great deal for detective Madoc Rhys and his Janet that they are are charming and engaging enough to overcome a little goofiness. Fun read.

[jjmcgaffey · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Fun. There's really not much to the story - it's very light - but the characters are great, the situation is interesting, the murders are twisty - the first one uses a very non-obvious weapon, and if the murderer hadn't slipped up it would not have been datected at all. A happy ending and part of another, and a solidly proven case - very nice. I enjoy Madoc very much - unlike the Grub-and-Stakers, nobody here quite goes over the edge into self-parody. And Janet and Madoc are great as people. This isn't my favorite of them - that's Trouble in the Brasses, for some reason - but it's one of my favorites.

[donnaleasimpson · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I read this book many years ago and thought it was stupid. Then I read it again, and thought it not bad. I read it yet again, and realized the sheer brilliance of the woman. As I've become a published author, I've realized how hard it is to do what she did effortlessly, which is keep all the balls - humor, character, mystery - up in the air at the same time. Good work.

[drruth_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

First and best of Alisa Craig's mountie mystery series. Note: Craig is the same as Charlotte Macleod