Professor Peter shandy investigates the disappearance of his long-time neighbor and finds out that neighbor's great secret. Meanwhile, the neighbor's wife is murdered.
library book read 1/2/023. ( )

In the previous Peter Shandy book, Something in the Water, Ms. MacLeod seems to have taken a step toward keeping her middle-aged characters hale and hearty. In this, the last volume, she tidies up a couple of loose ends in proper cozy mystery fashion. This review is being written after my fourth reading of the book since I bought it new. Ms. MacLeod's books tended to keep me so focused on the characters and their diverting dialogue during my first readings that I frequently overlooked clues. This time the characters were as enjoyable as ever, but I remembered whodunnit and picked up the clues.

Ever since book one, Rest You Merry, Mirelle Feldster has been the kind of character a cozy fan wouldn't mind seeing bumped off. Her husband, Professor Jim Feldster, can hardly be blamed for spending most nights at some lodge meeting or other. Now we finally find out why Jim ever married the self-centered gossipmonger: her good looks and to spite his mother. Why didn't he divorce her when he found out what Mirelle was like? That's explained, too.

Jim Feldster has never been a big member of the Shandy supporting cast. Turns out this bit player has been keeping a king-size secret for decades, a secret that mystery writer Catriona McBogle uncovers. Who tried to kill Jim? The secret certainly is a motive some might consider worth a murder. Can our heroes keep Jim alive until the would-be murderer is unmasked?

Until I started cataloging this series, I had no idea that Charlotte MacLeod had died in 2005 -- or why she'd stopped writing. Now that I know, I'm glad that she was able to close her two biggest series. This book has a climax right out of an old horror movie.

The author photo is credited to 'Bonnie Scott Connoly', but it's obviously the same photo as in the last book, just a bit different in the cropping, so I'm sticking with the 'Connolly' spelling.

Mark Hess is the artist for the cover with an outline of a suprised person uncovering some of the bricks of an ivy-covered building. There's a small pail of spilled cream on the ground, to the left. A gray tabby with a white patch on the neck and white paws is looking at the outline. Yes! We finally get to find out what color the Shandy's little tiger cat is. I'm so glad that Jane Austen made the cover.

For my fellow Shandy fans who like learning tidbits about the cast and share my difficulty in remembering in which book a tidbit appeared:

Ch.1: Jim Feldster has been teaching Fundamentals of Dairy Management for 37 years.

All the Shandys' neighbors, except for cat-hating Mirelle Feldstar, consider a visit from Jane an honor.

Jane has Jim trained to pause long enough for her to climb him and find out which lodge regalia is making him clank this time.

Mirelle likes to duck under the spruce trees between her house and the Shandys and look through her binoculars.

Ch.2: Balaclava Junction's only police car has died for good and Chief Fred Ottermole is making his rounds on his oldest son's bicycle.

Ms. MacLeod was nice to Edmund the cat and let him share some of the whipped cream from Fred's whoopie pie.

Ch.3: Edna Mae Ottermole embroidered little blue handcuffs on at least two of her husband's handkerchiefs.

Edmund sometimes rides with Fred.. The bike's basket contains a cushion with blue handcuffs embroidered on it.

Cat McBogle is desperate for a plot for a new book.

Helen has every book or pamphlet in the Shandy house shelved or filed. They also have a faculty picnic photo of slender Prof. Feldster and portly Prof. Stott together that Helen cherishes for the contrast.

Ch.4 Here is where Cat McBogle's thought processes are described, down to the stagnant water with a tadpole. Given that Peter jokingly claimed to have lunched on a moldy crust and sip of brackish water with tadpoles in chapter 9 of An Owl Too Many , I wonder if Ms. MacLeod had either been stuck with one or more tadpoles in stagnant water or knew someone who had.

This chapter also has the obituary for the CEO of International Dairies. I loved the way the nepotism there is described. Ditto the description of reference books and tidbits [of information] a few pages later.
The way International Dairies employees are treated would be nice if it were emulated by more big businesses.

McBogle's latest book is The Corpse in the Coalbin.

Why Guthrie Fingal has been boarding at Catriona's house is explained.

Ch.5: It's September and the Shandys' 10th anniversary will be the next April. Also, Peter gave Helen pearls for a wedding present.

At Balaclava College President Receptions, Coralee Melchett usually joins Mirelle Feldster and together they make nasty remarks about the other guests.

The Feldsters' closest neighbors are the Porbles to the north and the Shandys to the south.

Ch. 6: Here's where we'll find the list of what Guthrie Fingal thinks are essentials to keep in the trunk of one's car. The same page yields a description of the regalia for the Scarlet Runners.

Ch.7: The Feldsters' front parlor is described. A klutz such as yours truly wouldn't dare set foot in it.

Ch.8: Catronia and Guthrie are descended from Highland Scots. They both speak Canadian French as well as a private patois described here.

Peter has a tie rack that someone once gave to him at Christmas.

This is the chapter where Helen and Peter discuss Mirelle's possessions and her lack of children.

Ch.9: There's more about what Cat keeps in her car, not to mention the author's little remark about writers and fertile imaginations.

Emerson and Caryle often fight over a sweater in Cat's car.

Ch.13: Here we learn where the Balaclava Blacks workhorses rank in Thorkjeld Svenson's affections.

The college once had conjoined twins as students who now breed double blossoms and are doing very well at it.

Peter's celler has an old-fashioned jelly cupboard.

Ch.14: When Guthrie moved in he got Cat's second-best bedroom.

Cat lived in a Massachusetts suburb until her darling Ben died. Her house in Maine is one she used to bike pass when she was a child. Her Uncle Clewitt made up a ghost story about it and told it to her.

Mirelle Feldster had been a cheerleader and Homecoming Queen at some little college somewhere.

Ch. 16: Jim tells Peter about his childhood. His description of his mother makes it understandable why he would want to spite her in his choice of wife.

Ch.17: Peter has never seen a valet before, except in old Adophe Menjou movies.

Ch.19: Peter's grandparents sang old ballads. His mother played popular songs on the piano. One of the songs Peter sings that his mother wouldn't have is named.

Ch.22: Mrs. Melchett's father has seven dress shops. She helps out in them

Ch.24: There's a big continuity error in paragraph 14: Peter explains to Ms. Tripp that the Feldster's house is '...owned and leased but never sold by Balaclava Agricultural College to bona fide members of the faculty...' According to paragraph 17 of chapter 7 of Rest You Merry, 'Although these [the houses on the Crescent] were owned by the people who lived in them, the land they sat on belonged to the college and they couldn't be resold except to other faculty or staff.' ( I remembered that tidbit existed only because it hasn't been that long since I reread the first book and it still took me hours to find.)

Ch.25 has a description of the exterior of the Feldsters' house.

Peter's father used to read to him from Tales of a Wayside Inn. A lot of Whittier and Longfellow got quoted at their house.

Ch.26: Ellie June Freedom's inn doesn't allow cats.

Mrs. Mouzouka lives two miless off campus.

The Claverton newspaper is The Claverton Crier. ( )

When Jim Feldtster, the head of the dairy dept. at a small, New England, agricultural college disappears under mysterious circumstances, his unpleasant wife rouses her neighbor, Professor Peter Shandy, in the middle of the night. Shandy dismisses her pleas for help as attention-seekkng hystrionics.

When Feldster still hasn't turned up to teach his classes the next day, Shandy has second thoughts, and regrets being so dismissive the night before.

After Peter and Helen Shandy's friend, Catriona McBogle, gets lost on a rarely-used backroad and finds Feldster strapped into a wrecked car and apparently suffering from amnesia, the mystery only deepens.

The mystery becomes even more profound when Feldster's unpleasant wife is found dead in their immaculate house.

This was an entertaining read. Among the cozies I've read, I'd probably rate it somewhere in the middle - not the worst by any means, but certanly not the best. ( )

This was my first Charlotte MacLeod novel, and I started at the end of her Peter Shandy series. Based on the writing style, it probably doesn't matter in what order one reads the books in this series. The characters are essentially caricatures and, as such, are probably much the same from book to book. The story is heavy on witty banter and light on narrative description and anything resembling a clue. I think it's probably an acquired taste. I prefer mysteries with clues and suspects, and I enjoy the challenge of trying to solve the puzzle before the big revelation. Apparently this isn't MacLeod's style, at least not in this series. I won't be going out of my way to find more books in this series, but I might pick one up if it's handy and I'm in a frivolous mood. ( )