Book Review: Crouching Buzzard, Leaping Loon

Author: Donna Andrews
Title: Crouching Buzzard, Leaping Loon
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Publish Date: Feb 16, 2014
Buy: Amazon
Book Blurb: Poor Meg Langslow. She's blessed in so many ways. Michael, her boyfriend, is a handsome, delightful heartthrob who adores her. She's a successful blacksmith, known for her artistic wrought-iron creations. But somehow Meg's road to contentment is more rutted and filled with potholes than seems fair.

There are Michael's and Meg's doting but demanding mothers, for a start. And then there's the fruitless hunt for a place big enough for the couple to live together. And a succession of crises brought on by the well-meaning but utterly wacky demands of her friends and family. Demands that Meg has a hard time refusing---which is why she's tending the switchboard of Mutant Wizards, where her brother's computer games are created, and handling all the office management problems that no one else bothers with. For companionship, besides a crew of eccentric techies, she has a buzzard with one wing---who she must feed frozen mice thawed in the office microwave---and Michael's mother's nightmare dog. Not to mention the psychotherapists who refuse to give up their lease on half of the office space, and whose conflicting therapies cause continuing dissension. This is not what Meg had in mind when she agreed to help her brother move his staff to new offices.

In fact, the atmosphere is so consistently loony that the office mail cart makes several passes through the reception room, with the office practical joker lying on top of it pretending to be dead, before Meg realizes that he's become the victim of someone who wasn't joking at all. He's been murdered for real.

Donna Andrews's debut book, Murder with Peacocks, won the St. Martin's Malice Domestic best first novel contest and reaped a harvest of other honors as well. This is the fourth book in the Meg Langslow series, which features the intrepid Meg and her cast of oddball relatives. Their capers are a lighthearted joy to read.

Review:  I've read a few of the Meg Langslow Mysteries, mostly as I find them. Totally out of order, of course, but I read them. This book reminded me of a Hallmark Mystery that meets Big Bang Theory. that

Meg is helping out at her brother's computer game firm. When a much hated programmer ends up dead there's a murder to be investigated, because her brother is a prime suspect.

There's a lot to enjoy here and it usually involves the programmers that are all a little bit eccentric/crazy and some of the therapists that work in the same building.

Some of the funniest scenes in the book involve the "affirmation bears" that one of the  therapists created. When you press their bellies they say positive things. Needless to say by the end of the book, the programmers have given them a sort of make over.

But back to Ted, the dead programmer. As Meg starts her own investigation, we find there's a lot of people that might have a good reason to want him dead. He's not a nice guy.  In fact, he's pretty obnoxious and he's blackmailing a lot of the people that he works with or at least trying to.

I really loved the programmers.  Their personality quirks really made the story. You also can't forget the office's mascot, George, the buzzard.

There are some great subplots with the animals and with the therapists.

The best part is you won't guess who did it.  The reveal was a big surprise to me, considering how many people had cause to want Ted dead.

This was a really fun an entertaining mystery. I can't wait to find another book from this series.

Rating: 4 flowers

Book Review: Murder With Puffins

Author: Donna Andrews
Title: Murder With Puffins
Publisher: St Martin's Press
Publish Date: June 15, 2001
Buy: Amazon
Book Blurb: In an attempt to get away from her family, Meg and her boyfriend go to a tiny island off the coast of Maine. What could have been a romantic getaway slowly turns into disaster.

Once there, they are marooned by a hurricane and that is only the beginning of their problems. Meg and her boyfriend arrive at the house only to discover that Meg's parents and siblings, along with their spouses are all there. When a murder takes place, Meg realizes that she and her boyfriend can no longer sit by a cozy fireplace, but must instead tramp around the muddy island to keep try and clear her father who is the chief suspect.

Review: Murder With Puffins is the second book in the Meg Langslow mystery series. This one started out a bit slow for me. Usually the first few books in cozy mystery series are quick to get to the murder, in this book it was more like, quick to get to the hurricane that was coming up the coast.

However once Meg and Michael discover the body things start moving along. I'm not sure that it really is all about clearing her father's name so much as finding the killer. They never really say her dad is going to be arrested or anything like that.

What I found amusing and totally out of it, is how Meg was always breaking in to the dead guy's house. Seriously! This is a huge expensive house on this island. The owner didn't have any security? No one else finds anything wrong with this?

I think the whole implausibility factor is what makes these books such fun to read. No one could get away with some of the stuff Meg does.

The birders were great on the island. Truth be told, I'd never heard of a Puffin before I read this book. And the local artist that writes children's books about them was a hoot.

But really aren't these birds adorable?

I also love Michael. He's such a good sport about things. This whole situation would put off "real world" men. I mean he was expecting a weekend alone with his girlfriend, and what he gets is a house full of her family, a hurricane and a dead body!

I'm looking forward to reading more of the series so I can find out how their relationship progresses.

Rating: 4 flowers

Book Review: Murder With Peacocks

Author: Donna Andrews
Title: Murder With Peacocks
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Publish Date:Jan 15, 2000
Rating: 4 Stars
Book Blurb: THREE WEDDINGS...AND A MURDER

So far Meg Langslow's summer is not going swimmingly. Down in her small Virginia hometown, she's maid of honor at the nuptials of three loved ones--each of whom has dumped the planning in her capable hands. One bride is set on including a Native American herbal purification ceremony, while another wants live peacocks on the lawn. Only help from the town's drop-dead gorgeous hunk, disappointingly rumored to be gay, keeps Meg afloat in a sea of dotty relatives and outrageous neighbors.

And, in a whirl of summer parties and picnics, Southern hospitality is strained to the limit by an offensive newcomer who hints at skeletons in the guests' closets. But it seems this lady has offended one too many when she's found dead in suspicious circumstances, followed by a string of accidents--some fatal Soon, level-headed Meg's to-do list extends from flower arrangements and bridal registries to catching a killer--before the next catered event is her own funeral...

Review: This is the first book in the Meg Langslow Mysteries series, and it is a cute, fast, and fun mystery.

The cast of characters is vast. It includes Meg and her family and love interests, her best friend and soon to be husband and his brother Barry, who won't leave Meg alone, and the Bridal store owner's son, who everyone thinks is gay.

The reader is instantly drawn into every wacky predicament that Meg runs into while trying to organize three weddings, while people start dropping dead and accidents start happening to people close to her.

I loved the way this book was written. It was part chicklit and part mystery and the mystery was so good that it kept you guessing right up to the last page.

The relationship between Meg and Michael (the bridal shopkeeper for the summer) is sweet, especially because it doesn't quite get off the ground.  Every time Michael tries to tell her he isn't gay, something interupts him, so all the reader sees is a great friendship building between the two.

The brides add to the humor of the book, as each one gives new meaning to the term Bridezilla, and I'm not sure if that was even a word at the time this book was written, but OMG! each bride was obnoxious!  I think the worst was the mom, even though she didn't quite seem as demanding as Eileen who kept changing her mind on things and not having a dress chosen two months before the wedding or Samantha who was just simply a bitch.

Of course, without these brides, the book wouldn't be any fun and the same can be said for some of their soon to be husbands. Meg's mom has the oddest of the bunch. Jake is just not what you'd expect for Margaret, who is the most outgoing of the bunch, and his sister-in-law is a bit crazy and likes to stir up trouble. Of course, she's the first one to end up dead.

The amateur sleuthing between Meg, Michael and her father is great fun. This was a really entertaining book and I hope to find others in this series soon.