Charlotte MacLeod may be mystery’s queen of whimsy, but she takes her work seriously

By Elizabeth Edwardsen, Associated Press writer

DURHAM, Maine (AP) – Charlotte MacLeod once murdered a man by splashing his face with disfiguring quicklime. She gored another with an ancient spear, and yet another victim met his demise in a swarm of stinging bees.

Recently, a troublemaker fell face first into his chicken pot pie at a coastal Maine inn – the recipient of MacLeod’s delivery of a cyanide capsule.

"That wasn’t very nice of me," she said with a sly smile, recalling the horrifying quicklime death as she sat in a sunny parlor at her 200-year-old home.

Yes, despite a few dozen murders under her belt, MacLeod is free to roam the pastures and gardens near her rural house. And she’s free to commit murder with impressive regularity, with a legion mystery-reading fans waiting for the next body to drop.

As the author of more than 35 mystery novels, MacLeod is a prolific contributor to one of fiction’s most popular genres – the traditional or "cozy" mystery. Her books have sold more than 1 million copies in the United States alone. She has huge followings in Canada, Japan and elsewhere.

MacLeod, 71, said she thinks mystery novels are popular because readers find it satisfying that the villain usually gets caught.

"There is so little in the real world that makes very much sense and where there is a story that carries something through to a specific ending. In the traditional mystery, usually the virgin triumphs. It’s an outgrowth of the old morality plays," she said.

MacLeod has been called the "queen of the screwball mystery," thanks to her eccentric characters, wacky names and comic circumstances that put a light-hearted touch on the sinister goings-on in her books.

"It’s just the way I see things," she said.

Rumor has it that MacLeod was the inspiration for Jessica Fletcher, the mystery-writing sleuth portrayed by Angela Lansbury on the TV series, "Murder She Wrote."

"No," she said when asked if she was the basis for the character. "Everybody asks that. No, no, no, no."

There are some similarities. MacLeod and Fletcher are around the same age. Both are mystery writers living in Maine. But, MacLeod insists, the resemblance stops there. She doesn’t solve real-life mysteries, and she can’t ride a bike.

" I would love meeting her (Lansbury) in person but not as her alter ego. It’s always irked me that I can’t ride a bicycle and she does. … I fall off," she said.

MacLeod said the show is "sort of a joke among writers because she never gets to do any writing."

MacLeod, whose family moved from New Brunswick to the Boston area when she was an infant, said she had always wanted to be a writer. But she didn’t sell her first mystery novel until she was in her 40s and well into a career writing advertising copy. She credits the ad job with helping her get her mystery work done.

" Thanks to the very severe discipline that you get writing against a deadline, I was able to sit myself down. … I just worked and I worked and I worked, and finally it all just sort of came together," MacLeod said.
She still exercises a bit of discipline to keep her poison pen sharp. She rises early every morning and is at her electric typewriter by 6 a.m. to put in several hours work.

"Writing is very, very difficult, and you really have to play little tricks on yourself to keep at it. One of mine is I don’t get dressed. I spent most of this past winter in a fuzzy Indian blanket bathrobe and a pair of pink booties," MacLeod said.

All that typing in her bathrobe resulted in two books out this spring.
"Something in the Water" is MacLeod’s latest mystery and the 11th novel in a series featuring Peter Shandy, a horticulture professor at the fictitious Balaclava Agricultural College. In his latest adventure, Shandy visits Maine to see a special crop of lupines and becomes unwittingly involved in a murder investigation.

The Shandy books are just one of MacLeod’s series. She has written nine novels in a series featuring Sarah Kelling, a Boston WASP with a boarding house full of outlandish tenants, a family of blue-blood oddballs and a loving husband who helps her solve crimes that invariably occur in her vicinity.

The Canadian-born MacLeod also writes two mystery series set in her native country, using the pen name Alisa Craig.

And MacLeod recently published a biography of Mary Roberts Rinehart, a best-selling mystery writer from the early 20th century.

Unlike Agatha Christie’s, Rinehart’s work faded in popularity after her death in 1958 at age 82. MacLeod hopes "Had She But Known" generates new interest in Rinehart. She said Rinehart was a "pioneer" in the genre who "injected humor into the mystery."

"I intended the book to be a reintroduction to a woman who was very famous in her day," said MacLeod, a longtime fan of Rinehart’s work.
" I’d grown up on her mysteries, and I read her autobiography as a child. I couldn’t take it out of the library because I wasn’t in high school yet. So I sat on the floor in the library behind the cases and read it anyway."

She wanted a new generation to know Rinehart’s personal story and the contributions she made in fields beyond mystery writing. Rinehart, a nurse who turned to mystery writing in 1908 to supplement her doctor husband’s income, also covered World War I for The Saturday Evening Post, served as a lobbyist for an Indian tribe, publicized the issue of breast cancer and hobnobbed with presidents and royalty.

MacLeod leads a somewhat more isolated life in the airy old house she shares with three cats.

Recently, she sat on a white wicker settee, rubbing the belly of an orange cat named George and discussing the jonquils growing nearby. But underneath the calm exterior, more murders were surely being plotted.

"I do use bizarre methods to kill people," MacLeod said.

Elizabeth Edwardsen: eke@maine.rr.com | 207 799-6486