CHARLOTTE MacLEOD – The Recycled Citizen. Sarah Kelling (Bittersohn) #7. Mysterious Press, hardcover, 1988; paperback, 1989.

   The senior citizens’ recycling center run by Sarah Kelling’s many relatives runs into hard times in this latest adventure. One of the members is a mugging victim, but leaves traces of heroin in his scavenger bag, and unaccountably, a fortune of $41,326.

   In recent books MacLeod has erred badly in assuming that we are all as fond of her characters as she is. Of the 250 pages in this one, 200 are filled with tweedle. Humorous, good-natured tweedle, but still tweedle. The other 50 pages consist of utter nonsense.

[FOOTNOTE.] Would you believe a drug delivery system based on filling empty antique cans of Grapercola soda pop with dope, then dropping them conveniently on the paths of senior citizens supplementing their incomes from retrieving them for salvage? Neither would I. (Yes, I know it’s meant to be funny. Believe me, I wish it were.)

–Reprinted with some mild revisions from Mystery*File #14, July 1989.