The Luck Runs Out

At Balaclava Agricultural College, a kidnapping and pig-napping are followed by murder. Newlyweds Peter and Helen Shandy are picking out flatware when a pair of gun-toting hooligans burst into the silversmith's shop, empty the safe, and leave with Helen as their hostage. Although the police recover Helen quickly, her professor husband is badly shaken by the ordeal. Early the next morning, the college's head of animal husbandry frantically reports another hostage situation in progress. Belinda, the school's beloved sow, has been kidnapped, and only Peter can bring home the bacon. There is a possible witness to the pig-napping in Miss Flackley, the farrier, but before she can point Peter towards the vanished porker, she is found dead in the barn's mash feeder. By the time Peter discovers the link between the two heists, pigs may really fly. Review Quotes. "The epitome of the 'cozy' mystery." - Mostly Murder. "MacLeod can be counted on for a witty, literate and charming mystery." - Publishers Weekly "Charm, wit, and Holmesian logic." - Audiofile Biographical note. Charlotte MacLeod (1922-2005) was an internationally 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.