The Penguin Who Knew Too Much (A Meg Langslow Mystery) [Hardcover]

Donna Andrews (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 7, 2007

Hold on to your hats, everybody!  Donna Andrews is taking us on another ride into the wonderful world of Meg Langslow, a world filled with laughter as well as the knotty problems Meg always seems to encounter and---somehow---solve. 
Okay, maybe there are people in Antarctica with penguins in their basements, but in Virginia?  Only Meg's dad could manage that one. A body down there---well, that's somewhat more likely.

It turns out that explaining the penguins' presence is easy---Meg's dad volunteered to take care of the birds until the future of the bankrupt local zoo could be determined. But identifying the body in the basement proves a harder task---could it be, as Meg fears, that of the vanished zoo owner?

In the small southern town of Caerphilly, rumors fly quickly, and all the other well-meaning citizens who have agreed to take in zoo animals are now worried that they might be stuck with their guests indefinitely. So when Meg's dad generously offers to help out anyone who can no longer care for their four-legged charges, a parade of wild creatures begins to make Meg and Michael's newly renovated house look more like Noah's ark.

Meg and Michael have been planning to elope in order to avoid the elaborate wedding their mothers have begun to organize---a plan that's threatened by both the murder investigation and the carnival of animals. The only way to set things right, Meg decides, is to identify both their uninvited visitor and the killer who put him in their basement.

 

The award-winning Donna Andrews has demonstrated her immense talent by creating and nurturing a series that continues to delight and surprise with each new book.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. In Agatha-winner Andrews's deliciously daffy eighth Meg Langslow mystery (after 2006's No Nest for the Wicket), blacksmith Meg and her fiancé, Michael, are at last moving into their new house in Caerphilly, Va., assisted (and occasionally hindered) by Meg's vast clan of maternal relations. Then Meg's dad announces that, while digging a pool in the new house's basement for penguins fostered from a bankrupt local zoo, he has discovered a dead body. As the police investigate, more fostered animals arrive at Meg's place, and when the zoo's missing owner turns out to be the corpse, Meg has to sort out the mystery, along with her plans to elope and the problems relating to various animals roaming around her property. As usual, Meg takes the familial eccentricities in stride while coping with one crisis after another. Andrews demonstrates her absolute mastery of the comedic mystery, deftly balancing outrageously funny scenes with well-paced suspense. Author tour. (Aug.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Meg Langslow and her fiancé, Michael, are finally moving into their newly renovated house, assisted by numerous members of Meg's extended family. Unfortunately, Meg's father finds a body in her basement while he is digging a hole for a pool for some penguins he is fostering. The body is identified as that of Patrick Lanahan, owner of Caerphilly's bankrupt zoo. More chaos follows—and the Langslow menagerie quickly grows—after Meg's father's tells all those fostering the zoo animals to drop them off at Meg's place if fostering gets to be too much for them. Soon llamas, wolves, and hyenas are frolicking in the backyard. Meg investigates the murder and tries to save the zoo (so her many house guests can return home), all while planning her secret wedding. The levelheaded, unflappable Meg takes it all in stride: the parade of wild animals, her quirky relatives, an irate police chief, and a father who loves a mystery. This eighth cozy in the series makes the most of humorous situations, zany relatives, and lovable characters. O'Brien, Sue

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Minotaur Books; First Edition edition (August 7, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312329423
• ISBN-13: 978-0312329426
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.9 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,105,674 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I've been writing since I learned to print, but didn't get published until Murder with Peacocks won the Malice Domestic/St. Martins Press Best First Traditional Mystery contest in spring 1998. Since then I've written six more comic mysteries books featuring ornamental blacksmith Meg Langslow: Murder with Puffins (2000), Revenge of the Wrought Iron Flamingos (2001), Crouching Buzzard, Leaping Loon (2003), We'll Always Have Parrots (2004), Owls Well That Ends Well (2005), and No Nest for the Wicket (August 2006). I've also started another series in with the sleuth, Turing Hopper, is an artificial intelligence personality living inside a corporate computer: You've Got Murder (2002), Click Here for Murder (2003), Access Denied (2004), and Delete All Suspects (2005).

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Donna Andrews has done it again., August 27, 2007

By 

Barbara J. Carges "Barb Carges" (New York) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Penguin Who Knew Too Much (A Meg Langslow Mystery) (Hardcover)

Once again Donna Andrews has given us a wild and wacky mystery.
This book starts off with Meg's father joyfully asking her to guess what he's found in the basement. She jokingly answers "A body?" and he replies "Oh, rats---you already knew? Well, how soon will the police get here? I need to move the penguins---we don't want them any more upset then they already are."
Meg is off and running from there. With the dubious help of family and friends Meg and Michael are moving into their renovated house, throwing an over the top house warming party and planning to elope in the middle of it all. Now Meg has to add solving the murder to her list of things to do.
Like the other books in this series, this is a well written mystery that is also highly amusing. Anyone who has read the rest of the series will be glad to attend another Hollingsworth get-together with a little murder on-the-side. For those who are new to Meg's world, get ready to enjoy the ride.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Much better effort!, August 29, 2007

By 

Cozymysterycrazy (living in a dream world) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Penguin Who Knew Too Much (A Meg Langslow Mystery) (Hardcover)

This is much better than her last one (No Rest for the Wicket) and it's a promising return to form for Ms Andrews.

The plot is excellent and the funny lines are back again, as well as the expected rich and colourful cast of characters.

If I have a quibble, it's that Meg's Dad has finally lost his charm and become selfishly oblivious to anything but his own interests. He's happy to abuse Meg's good nature for his own ends. Not only that - he's become stupid. Why on earth would a supposedly intelligent man dig a pond for penguins in Meg's unsuitable basement when there was already a real, outdoor pond available just across the road? The 'Virginia heat' explanation doesn't wash, since the penguins are re-located to the pond almost immediately, and Dr Langslow doesn't give a damn about the heat or the animals' welfare by then... It's a plot device, but with a little more effort there could have been any number of more logical ways to reveal the body.(Ok, it's fiction and I'm picky, but these inconsistencies do jar...)

Apart from that, I really enjoyed the strong story and hope Ms Andrews carries on raising her game. Not as good as 'Crouching Buzzard, Leaping Loon' but it does give me hope for the next one in the series...

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Laughs, Murder, and Zoo Animals, September 3, 2007

By 

Mark Baker (Santa Clarita, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Penguin Who Knew Too Much (A Meg Langslow Mystery) (Hardcover)

Meg and Michael are finally moving into their new house. All of Meg's relatives are coming to help. And in the middle of the house warming party to follow, Meg and Michael plan to slip away to elope.

Everyone is just beginning to work when Meg's dad appears, announces he found a body in the basement while digging a swimming pit for the penguins, and disappears again.

Dead body? Penguins? Unfortunately, both prove to be true.

The penguins are refugees from the local zoo which has closed temporarily due to poor financial management. And they are just the beginning of the animals that begin to show up since Meg's dad has volunteered to take care of any animals that need to be watched.

Even worse, the body turns out to be the zoo's owner. Now Meg has a few days to find the killer and solve her sudden animal problem or risk watching her carefully planned elopement fall apart. Can she do it?

The books in this series are always funny, and this book is no exception. I chuckled and laugh the entire way through. There are some great new characters that provide some of the best laughs of the book. And, of course, there are the antics of the animals as well.

The plot suffered a little at the expense of the comedy. It starts out strong and develops pretty evenly. But the ending seems rushed to me.

Frankly, fans of the series won't care. They'll be laughing so hard at the antics of animal and human alike. This is another treat from a master of humor.