Life and work

Born in Bath

Bath, New Brunswick

Bath is a village on the Saint John River in Carleton County, New Brunswick, Canada. As of 2006 the population was 592, now in 2008 it is 512. It has an elementary and a middle school. Bath is the birthplace of Buzz Hargrove, former president of the Canadian Auto Workers, and Rev. Brent Hawkes.The...

, New Brunswick

New Brunswick

New Brunswick is one of Canada's three Maritime provinces and is the only province in the federation that is constitutionally bilingual . The provincial capital is Fredericton and Saint John is the most populous city. Greater Moncton is the largest Census Metropolitan Area...

, Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

, in 1922, Charlotte (Matilda) MacLeod emigrated to the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 in 1923, and became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1951. She attended the Art Institute of Boston. During the late 1940s and early 1950s, she worked as a copy writer for Stop and Shop Supermarkets in Boston. She eventually moved on to join the staff of N. H. Miller & Company, an advertising firm, where she rose to the level of vice president, and retired in 1982.

While continuing to work at the advertising company during the day, MacLeod began writing mystery fiction, eventually publishing over 30 in all. Many of her books are set in New England, including one series focused on college professor Peter Shandy, and another on Beacon Hill

Beacon Hill, Boston, Massachusetts

Beacon Hill is a historic neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, that along with the neighboring Back Bay is home to about 26,000 people. It is a neighborhood of Federal-style rowhouses and is known for its narrow, gas-lit streets and brick sidewalks...

 couple Sarah Kelling and Max Bittersohn. Other mysteries, set in Canada, were published under the pen name Alisa Craig. She specifically tailored her books to be "cozies", i.e. avoiding too much violence, gore, or sex. All feature a humorous and literate-yet-light style, likable protagonists, and eccentric casts of secondary characters.

Described as a "true lady" and often seen with hat and white gloves, MacLeod began writing at 6 a.m., continued through the morning, then used the afternoon for rewrites. She only started new books on Sundays and during writing would stay dressed in a bathrobe to avoid temptation of leaving the house for an errand. Her work sold over one million copies in the United States as well as Canada and Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

. MacLeod was co-founder and past president of the American Crime Writers League. She received a Nero Award

Nero Award

The Nero Award is a literary award for excellence in the mystery genre presented by The Wolfe Pack, a society founded in 1978 to explore and celebrate the Nero Wolfe stories of Rex Stout...

 for The Corpse in Oozak's Pond (1987), which was also nominated for an Edgar Award

Edgar Award

The Edgar Allan Poe Awards , named after Edgar Allan Poe, are presented every year by the Mystery Writers of America...

.

MacLeod spent her final years in Maine

Maine

Maine is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east and south, New Hampshire to the west, and the Canadian provinces of Quebec to the northwest and New Brunswick to the northeast. Maine is both the northernmost and easternmost...

. Toward the end of her years she suffered from Alzheimer's disease

Alzheimer's disease

Alzheimer's disease also known in medical literature as Alzheimer disease is the most common form of dementia. There is no cure for the disease, which worsens as it progresses, and eventually leads to death...

 and died on January 14, 2005, in a Lewiston, Maine

Lewiston, Maine

Lewiston is a city in Androscoggin County in Maine, and the second-largest city in the state. The population was 41,592 at the 2010 census. It is one of two principal cities of and included within the Lewiston-Auburn, Maine metropolitan New England city and town area and the Lewiston-Auburn, Maine...

 nursing home.

As Charlotte MacLeod

Mysteries starring Prof. Peter Shandy of (fictional) Balaclava Agricultural College [& Helen Marsh Shandy, DLS]

• Rest You Merry (1979) -- Revised and expanded from a short story which became the 1st chapter +/-
• The Luck Runs Out (1981)
• Wrack and Rune (1982)
• Something the Cat Dragged In (1984)
• The Curse of the Giant Hogweed (1985)
• The Corpse in Oozak's Pond (1987)
• Vane Pursuit (1989)
• An Owl Too Many (1991)
• Something in the Water (1994)
• Exit the Milkman (1996)

Mysteries starring Sarah Kelling Kelling Bittersohn and/or art investigator Max Bittersohn, set among Boston's upper crust

• The Family Vault (1980)
• The Withdrawing Room (1981)
• The Palace Guard (1982)
• The Bilbao Looking Glass (1983)
• The Convivial Codfish (1984)
• The Plain Old Man (1985)
• The Recycled Citizen (1988)
• The Silver Ghost (1988)
• The Gladstone Bag (1989)
• The Resurrection Man (1992)
• The Odd Job (1995)
• The Balloon Man (1998)

Non-series books

• The Fat Lady's Ghost (1968)
• Ask Me No Questions (1971)
• Cirak's Daughter (1982)
• Maid of Honor (1984)
• Grab Bag (1987) (short stories; including 2 about Max Bittersohn and Sarah Kelling, and one about Peter Shandy)
• It Was an Awful Shame and Other Stories (2002) (short stories; a reprint of Grab Bag but with 3 additional stories, including one about Max Bittersohn and Sarah Kelling)

Correspondence

• Charlotte MacLeod Remembered: Letters from Charlotte (collection)

As editor

• Christmas Stalkings
• Mistletoe Mysteries

Non-fiction

• Had She But Known: A Biography of Mary Roberts Rinehart (1994)

As Alisa Craig

Mysteries starring Madoc Rhys of the RCMP [& Janet Wadman Rhys]

• A Pint of Murder (1980)
• Murder Goes Mumming (1981)
• A Dismal Thing to Do (1986)
• Trouble in the Brasses (1989)
• The Wrong Rite (1992)

Mysteries starring Dittany Henbit Monk, of the Lobelia Falls Grub-and-Stakers Gardening & Roving Club

• The Grub-and-Stakers Move a Mountain (1981)
• The Grub-and-Stakers Quilt a Bee (1985)
• The Grub-and-Stakers Pinch a Poke (1988)
• The Grub-and-Stakers Spin a Yarn (1990)
• The Grub-and-Stakers House a Haunt (1993)

Non-series books

• The Terrible Tide (1985)

Awards and nominations

• Nero Award
  Nero Award
  The Nero Award is a literary award for excellence in the mystery genre presented by The Wolfe Pack, a society founded in 1978 to explore and celebrate the Nero Wolfe stories of Rex Stout...
  
  (1 win)
• Edgar Allan Poe Award (2 nominations)
• American Mystery Awards (5 wins)
• Bouchercon Lifetime Achievement Award
• Malice Domestic Lifetime Achievement Award