diff --git a/CHANGES.txt b/CHANGES.txt
index b309e96344..f14eb2204b 100644
--- a/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/CHANGES.txt
@@ -36,6 +36,7 @@ Merged from 2.2:
   (CASSANDRA-12554)
 Merged from 2.1:
  * Add system property to set the max number of native transport requests in queue (CASSANDRA-11363)
+ * Don't skip sstables based on maxLocalDeletionTime (CASSANDRA-12765)
 
 
 3.0.9
diff --git a/src/java/org/apache/cassandra/db/SinglePartitionReadCommand.java b/src/java/org/apache/cassandra/db/SinglePartitionReadCommand.java
index 23b02f3217..5f8df1b520 100644
--- a/src/java/org/apache/cassandra/db/SinglePartitionReadCommand.java
+++ b/src/java/org/apache/cassandra/db/SinglePartitionReadCommand.java
@@ -570,7 +570,7 @@ public class SinglePartitionReadCommand extends ReadCommand
                 {
                     nonIntersectingSSTables++;
                     // sstable contains no tombstone if maxLocalDeletionTime == Integer.MAX_VALUE, so we can safely skip those entirely
-                    if (sstable.getSSTableMetadata().maxLocalDeletionTime != Integer.MAX_VALUE)
+                    if (sstable.hasTombstones())
                     {
                         if (skippedSSTables == null)
                             skippedSSTables = new ArrayList<>();
@@ -731,14 +731,14 @@ public class SinglePartitionReadCommand extends ReadCommand
                 // however: if it is set, it impacts everything and must be included. Getting that top-level partition deletion costs us
                 // some seek in general however (unless the partition is indexed and is in the key cache), so we first check if the sstable
                 // has any tombstone at all as a shortcut.
-                if (sstable.getSSTableMetadata().maxLocalDeletionTime == Integer.MAX_VALUE)
+                if (!sstable.hasTombstones())
                     continue; // Means no tombstone at all, we can skip that sstable
 
                 // We need to get the partition deletion and include it if it's live. In any case though, we're done with that sstable.
                 sstable.incrementReadCount();
                 try (UnfilteredRowIterator iter = sstable.iterator(partitionKey(), columnFilter(), filter.isReversed(), isForThrift()))
                 {
-                    if (iter.partitionLevelDeletion().isLive())
+                    if (!iter.partitionLevelDeletion().isLive())
                     {
                         sstablesIterated++;
                         result = add(UnfilteredRowIterators.noRowsIterator(iter.metadata(), iter.partitionKey(), Rows.EMPTY_STATIC_ROW, iter.partitionLevelDeletion(), filter.isReversed()), result, filter, sstable.isRepaired());
diff --git a/src/java/org/apache/cassandra/io/sstable/format/SSTableReader.java b/src/java/org/apache/cassandra/io/sstable/format/SSTableReader.java
index 9f31af1509..f0cdcf5ef3 100644
--- a/src/java/org/apache/cassandra/io/sstable/format/SSTableReader.java
+++ b/src/java/org/apache/cassandra/io/sstable/format/SSTableReader.java
@@ -1840,6 +1840,14 @@ public abstract class SSTableReader extends SSTable implements SelfRefCounted<SS
         return sstableMetadata.maxLocalDeletionTime;
     }
 
+    /** sstable contains no tombstones if minLocalDeletionTime == Integer.MAX_VALUE */
+    public boolean hasTombstones()
+    {
+        // sstable contains no tombstone if minLocalDeletionTime is still set to  the default value Integer.MAX_VALUE
+        // which is bigger than any valid deletion times
+        return getMinLocalDeletionTime() != Integer.MAX_VALUE;
+    }
+
     public int getMinTTL()
     {
         return sstableMetadata.minTTL;
diff --git a/test/unit/org/apache/cassandra/db/SinglePartitionReadCommandCQLTest.java b/test/unit/org/apache/cassandra/db/SinglePartitionReadCommandCQLTest.java
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..1c891ec2b2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/test/unit/org/apache/cassandra/db/SinglePartitionReadCommandCQLTest.java
@@ -0,0 +1,41 @@
+/*
+ * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
+ * or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
+ * distributed with this work for additional information
+ * regarding copyright ownership.  The ASF licenses this file
+ * to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
+ * "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
+ * with the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+ *
+ *     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+ *
+ * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+ * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+ * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+ * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+ * limitations under the License.
+ */
+
+package org.apache.cassandra.db;
+
+import org.junit.Test;
+
+import org.apache.cassandra.cql3.CQLTester;
+import org.apache.cassandra.cql3.UntypedResultSet;
+import static org.junit.Assert.assertTrue;
+
+public class SinglePartitionReadCommandCQLTest extends CQLTester
+{
+    @Test
+    public void partitionLevelDeletionTest() throws Throwable
+    {
+        createTable("CREATE TABLE %s (bucket_id TEXT,name TEXT,data TEXT,PRIMARY KEY (bucket_id, name))");
+        execute("insert into %s (bucket_id, name, data) values ('8772618c9009cf8f5a5e0c18', 'test', 'hello')");
+        getCurrentColumnFamilyStore().forceBlockingFlush();
+        execute("insert into %s (bucket_id, name, data) values ('8772618c9009cf8f5a5e0c19', 'test2', 'hello');");
+        execute("delete from %s where bucket_id = '8772618c9009cf8f5a5e0c18'");
+        getCurrentColumnFamilyStore().forceBlockingFlush();
+        UntypedResultSet res = execute("select * from %s where bucket_id = '8772618c9009cf8f5a5e0c18' and name = 'test'");
+        assertTrue(res.isEmpty());
+    }
+}