A Pint of Murder by Alisa Craig (Charlotte MacLeod)

I came down with a touch of flu, and I really couldn’t seem to wrap my mind around anything. This was a problem because I had to grade proposals from my technical writing class. I put that off though, and I read A Pint of Murderby Alisa Craig. Alisa Craig was a pseudonym for Charlotte MacLeod, a prolific mystery writer, who wrote several series, including the Sarah Kelling/Max Bittersohn mysteries that I loved when I was younger. It’s been ages since I read any of MacLeod’s work, and I wanted to start with something that was brand new to me. The Madoc and Janet Rhys series was new to me, and A Pint of Murder was the first in the short series.

Madoc was a Mountie, a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. He got called into a the suspicious deaths that happened next door to Janet (pronounced Jennet) Wadman. Janet had a bad experience with a jerk of a boyfriend, and she went to her brother’s farm to recuperate from an appendectomy. The woman next door died from botulism from a jar of home canned green beans. Janet thought it might be murder, and when she found a jar with cut beans instead of cracked beans, she wanted to take it to the doctor (and family member) of the murdered woman. When Janet arrived at the doctor’s home office with the beans, she found the doctor dead from a head injury. It looked as if the doctor had slipped on a rug while his wife was upstairs getting ready for an afternoon tea. Janet was sure both cases were murder, and she finally convinced the local marshal to call in the Mounties. Madoc appeared on the scene, fell in love with Janet, and found another murdered person. Madoc caught the murder, and paved the way for a future relationship with Janet.

The book was a very quick and easy read, and Janet and Madoc were very pleasant characters. A Pint of Murder was perfect for some light mystery reading while sick with flu. It was so good in fact, that I already started the second in the series, Murder Goes Mumming.