New York Times bestselling author Donna Andrews returns with another Meg Langslow mystery written 'firmly in the grand tradition of Agatha Christie's Christmas books' (Toronto Globe and Mail).
The 28th audiobook and the seventh Christmas mystery in the Meg Langslow series, The Gift of the Magpie is yet another wonderfully merry and funny book from New York Times bestselling author Donna Andrews.
Meg’s running Caerphilly’s Helping Hands for the Holidays project, in which neighbors help each other with things they can’t do and can’t afford to have done. Her hopes for a relatively peaceful (if busy) Christmas vanish when someone murders Harvey the Hoarder, whose house the Helping Hands were decluttering. Was there any truth to the rumor that he had something valuable hidden beneath all his junk? Was one of his friends, neighbors, or relatives greedy enough to murder him for the rumored treasure? And what about the magpie that has been bringing her family bits of tinsel and costume jewelry—does the bird’s latest gift hold a clue to solving the crime?
Full of intrigue, this Christmas mystery will take readers home to Caerphilly, where the suspense falls as thick as the snow.
A Macmillan Audio production from Minotaur Books
Meg Langslow is pregnant with twins when Michael asks if she wouldn't mind having a houseguest. One of his doctoral students is directing his new translation of a play by a minor Spanish playwright, who has agreed to come to town for the production. Surely they can spare some room for such an important academic cause? Senor Mendoza turns out to be a partygoer who loves to spend raucous evenings among adoring students...at Casa Langslow.
Into this chaos arrives the dean of the English department, who insists the play be canceled. Then the unthinkable happens: the dean is found murdered, and Meg's house has become a crime scene. Now it's up to Meg to help Chief Burke solve the murders, rescue the student's dissertation, make sure Michael doesn't lose tenure, and, while she's at it, give birth to twins. Encore! Encore!
The cast of Donna Andrews’ New York Times bestselling Meg Langslow mystery series is back for an unforgettable holiday story in The Twelve Jays of Christmas.
Meg's brother Rob and his fiancé Delaney have been engaged for some time now. In fear of their mothers’ propensity for over-the-top celebrations, they decide to throw a party just before Christmas and then elope.
When a blizzard traps their guests inside, the two mothers find out about the planned elopement and start trying to pull together the kind of over-the-top event the couple was trying to avoid in the first place.
To make matters worse, a murder is afoot. Will Meg manage to help the snowbound would-be eloping couple thwart their mothers' grandiose wedding plans AND solve a murder among the assembled friends and relatives?
A Macmillan Audio production from Minotaur Books
Meg Langslow is at Trinity Episcopal locking up after an event and checking on the toucan that Rev. Robyn Smith is fostering in her office. After hearing a hammering in the crypt, Meg finds an elderly parishioner lying dead on the floor. Several niches have been chiseled open, several urns knocked out, and amid the spilled ashes is a gold ring with a huge red stone. The curmudgeonly victim had become disgruntled with the church and ranted all over town about taking back his wife's ashes. Did someone who had it in for him follow him? Or was the motive grave robbery? Or did he see someone breaking in and investigate? Why was the ruby left behind? While Chief Burke investigates the murder, Robyn recruits Meg to contact the families of the people whose ashes were disturbed. During this task, Meg discovers clues that indicate that a thief broke into the church to steal the toucan the night of the murder, so Meg decides to set a trap for the would-be toucan thief...who might also be the killer.
It's a few days before Christmas, and Meg's grandfather is hosting a scientific conference on owls at the Caerphilly Inn. Most of the family are there, helping out in one capacity or another, including Meg's grandmother, Cordelia-invited by Grandfather in a rare gesture of peace-making, to share her expertise on rehabilitating large birds, including owls. An unexpectedly severe snow storm traps the conference-goers in the hotel, and one of the visiting ornithologists is murdered. Even if Caerphilly is able to clear the roads in time, Chief Burke doesn't want the various suspects to scatter to half a dozen continents before he identifies the killer, so there's a very real possibility that none of them will make it home for Christmas...at least not unless Meg comes to the rescue.
During an early-morning feeding for her four-month-old twins, Meg Langslow hears an odd noise and goes downstairs to find her living room filled with dozens of animals-cats, dogs, hamsters, gerbils, rabbits, guinea pigs, and a stunningly foul-mouthed macaw. She soon learns that financial woes have caused the local animal shelter to repeal its no-kill policy. Her kind-hearted father, her zoologist grandfather, and other like-minded citizens have stolen all the shelter animals, both as a gesture of protest and to protect them until the hated policy can be repealed. But the volunteer who was transporting animals to new homes has been murdered. Was it the victim's tangled love life that drove someone to murder? Or the dark secrets behind local politics? And will Meg ever succeed in finding homes for all the animals that have landed in her life?
New York Times bestselling author Donna Andrews first introduced us to Meg Langslow as a crime-solving bridesmaid. In her 31st mystery, Round Up the Usual Peacocks, Meg returns to her roots, juggling cold cases and wedding guests.
Kevin, Meg's cyber-savvy nephew who lives in the basement, comes to her with a problem. He's become involved as the techie for a true-crime podcast, one that focuses on Virginia cold cases and unsolved crimes. And he thinks their podcast has hit a nerve with someone . . . one of the podcast team has had a brush with death that Kevin thinks was an attempted murder, not an accident.
Kevin rather sheepishly asks for Meg's help in checking out the people involved in a couple of the cases. 'Given your ability to find out stuff online, why do you need MY help?' she asks. 'Um . . . because I've already done everything I can online. This'll take going around and TALKING to people,' he exclaims, with visible horror. 'In person!' Not his thing. And no, it can't wait until after the wedding, because he's afraid whoever's after them might take advantage of the chaos of the wedding at Trinity or the reception at Meg and Michael's house to strike again.
So on top of everything she's doing to round up vendors and supplies and take care of demanding out-of-town guests, Meg must hunt down the surviving suspects from three relatively local cold cases so she can figure out if they have it in for the podcasters. Could there be a connection to a musician on the brink of stardom who disappeared two decades ago and hasn't been seen since?
A Macmillan Audio production from Minotaur Books
Meg Langslow was actually looking forward to renovating the old Victorian mansion she and her boyfriend Michael bought. But she wasn't thrilled by the lifetime of junk accumulated by the house's eccentric previous owner, Edwina Sprocket. The easiest solution: hold the end-all and be-all of gigantic yard sales. But when the event attracts the late Miss Sprocket's money-hungry heirs, the over-enthusiastic supporters of some endangered barn owls, and customers willing to go to any lengths to uncover a hidden treasure, Meg suspects things have gotten a little out of hand. Then an antiques dealer is found stuffed in a trunk with his head bashed in-and the yard sale turns into a day's-long media circus.
As the holidays draw near in Caerphilly, Mother volunteers to take part in a big Christmas-themed decorator show house - each room of a temporarily untenanted house is decorated to the hilt by a different decorator for the public to tour. Of course, Mother insists that Meg pitch in with the organization, and she finds herself surrounded by flamboyant personalities with massive egos clashing and feeling their professional reputations are at stake. Then the rooms start to be sabotaged, and an unfortunate designer turns up dead - making Mother a prime suspect. Can Meg catch the real killer in time to save Mother the indignity of arrest?
Part 18 of the Meg Langslow Mysteries series.
Ray Santiago's friends from work know him as a brilliant-but-easygoing systems engineer who spends a lot of time on his favorite online role-playing game. But the game is over for Ray: his colleagues from work, Maude, Tim, and Turing, have just found out about Ray's murder in a dark alley. He was shot, and his laptop stolen. It could be just another D.C. street crime. But if Turing's password was in that computer-and it's fallen into the wrong hands-she could be in terrible danger. With Turing's Web-searching powers and Maude's and Tim's access to the outdoors, the trio starts looking into Ray's death, tracing their colleague's life from that fatal night, backspace by backspace. But this project leads to more questions than answers-because Ray seems to have fabricated his life story, even his name. And now their quest is growing even more crucial. For as they sort their way through Ray Santiago's various personas, online and off, danger lurks in the lab-perhaps within the very computer in which Turing lives.
Meg Langslow's summer is not going swimmingly. In her small Virginia hometown, she's the maid of honor at the nuptials of three loved onesÄîeach of whom has dumped the planning in her 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 keeps Meg afloat in a sea of relatives and outrageous neighbors. But when an offensive newcomer who hints at skeletons in the guests' closets is found dead under suspicious circumstances, level-headed Meg's to-do list extends from flower arrangements and bridal registries to catching a killerÄîbefore the next event is her own funeral.
Meg Langslow and her boyfriend, Michael, are searching for some romantic alone time. She knows the perfect place for a private getaway: her aunt's cottage on the tiny island of Monhegan. But when a series of events leads to the couple being trapped in the cottage with her entire family, their private getaway vacation slowly turns into a disaster. Meg doesn't think anything more could go wrong until a resident of the island with close ties to her mother is murdered. When her father becomes the chief suspect, she knows she can no longer sit by the cozy fireplace. In a dash to save her father and her weekend, Meg finds herself knee deep in murder once again.
