The Real Macaw

May 2, 2011
At the outset of Andrews's crowd-pleasing 13th Meg Langslow mystery (after 2010's Stork Raving Mad), Meg, new mother of twin boys, awakes early one morning to find her living room filled with animals, including a bright blue macaw, who cries, "Hiya, babe!" The Corsicans, an animal activist group whose members include Meg's dad and granddad, have rescued the creatures, mostly dogs and cats, from an animal shelter that's recently reversed its no-kill policy. Furniture store owner Parker Blair was supposed to pick up all the animals in his truck, but has failed to show, hence the temporary quartering in Meg's living room. Then Chief Burke of the Caerphilly, Va., police appears and announces that Parker has been murdered. With the support of her big extended family, Meg sets out to solve one murder and prevent another. People connected to Parker provide clues, but the key is the real macaw.

May 1, 2011
Early one morning, Meg Langslow finds her living room full of cats, dogs, hamsters, and a macaw. Due to budget cuts, the local animal shelter will no longer be a no-kill facility, so Megs father, grandfather, brother, and a veterinarian have stolen the animals and were forced to bring them to Megs house when their truck-driving contact, Parker Blair, didnt show up at the meeting place. It turns out that Parker, the local lothario, had been murdered in his truck. Was he killed by a jealous lover, by someone who resented his involvement with the shelter theft, or by someone who wanted to prevent his exposing irregularities in the local government? Along with the animals and her four-month-old twins, Meg has to contend with the possible government takeover of her land. Charming, competent Meg saves the day in this humorous, enjoyable addition to Andrews animal-rich series set in Caerphilly, Virginia, where a large supporting cast of quirky characters is also ensconced.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)

June 1, 2011

Caerphilly, Va., goes bust, leaving its detritus all over Meg Langslow's property.

It's a tribute to the wacky world created in Meg's first 11 adventures (Stork Raving Mad, 2010, etc.) that when she hears animal noises downstairs during a 2 a.m. feeding of her infant twins, it never occurs to either her or the reader that they represent anything dangerous or criminal. Indeed, the menagerie ensconced in her living room--enough animals for Noah, it seems--has been brought there by her physician father, her irascible grandfather and their fellow members of the Committee Opposed to the Ruthless Slaughter of Innocent Captive Animals (CORSICA). Now that financial pressures have forced the town's animal shelter to revisit its no-kill policy, CORSICA stalwarts have liberated its inmates and brought them all to Meg's. And that's only the tip of the iceberg. Under the dubious leadership of Mayor Pruitt, Caerphilly has run up a ruinous debt secured by the town's public buildings. Now the faceless (but Pruitt-friendly) bank is poised to foreclose, seizing both the town's assets and, under the law of eminent domain, the farms belonging to Meg's family and her neighbors. It's enough to make you forget the murder of Parker Blair, whose plan to start placing all those animals in good homes was cut short by a bullet. But figuring out whodunit doesn't look half as hard as pulling Caerphilly back from the brink of financial disaster.

Surprisingly, Andrews, sobering up measurably after her curtain-raiser, spends most of her time and energy solving Parker's murder, leaving his hometown's troubles to recede almost of their own accord in an undeservedly upbeat epilogue.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

July 1, 2011

Besides juggling twins, now Meg (Stork Raving Mad) has to deal with a houseful of animals and a dead animal shelter employee.

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.