The Real Macaw: A Meg Langslow Mystery (Meg Langslow Mysteries) [Kindle Edition]

Donna Andrews (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review

Praise for The Real Macaw:

"As always, Andrews laces this entertaining whodunit with wit, a fine storyline and characters we've come to know and love." --Richmond Times-Dispatch

A gaggle of praise for Donna Andrews and the Meg Langslow Mystery Series:

 “If you long for more fun mysteries, a la Janet Evanovich, you’ll love Donna Andrews’s Meg Langslow series.” —Charlotte Observer

“A long-running series that gets better all the time. A fine blend of academic satire, screwball comedy, and murder.” —Booklist

“With colorful characters, a solid mystery and laugh-out-loud moments. . . readers will have a rollicking good time with the new Meg Langslow mystey.” —RT BookReviews (4 stars)

“Six Geese A-Slaying produces at least one chuckle—and sometimes a guffaw—per page. Joy to the world, indeed.” —Richmond Times-Dispatch

“Andrews’ eighth Meg-centric mystery moves along like the best beach reads.” —Entertainment Weekly

“Deliciously daffy. . . Andrews demonstrates her absolute mastery of the comedic mystery, deftly balancing outrageously funny scenes with well-paced suspense.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

 

Product Description

Meg juggles twins, murder, and a back-talking bird in the next side-splittingly funny installment in the award-winning, New York Times bestselling series

During a 2am 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 kindhearted father, her zoologist grandfather, and other like-minded citizens have stolen all the shelter’s animals, both as a gesture of protest and to protect them until the hated policy can be repealed. But the volunteer who was to transport the 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?

            Full of the hilarious shenanigans – avian as well as human – that have come to surround Meg and her eccentric band of friends and family, the latest from the one and only Donna Andrews will have you laughing until the very last page: it’s The Real Macaw!

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Product Details

• Format: Kindle Edition
• File Size: 389 KB
• Publisher: Minotaur Books; 1 edition (July 19, 2011)
• Sold by: Macmillan
• Language: English
• ASIN: B004ULOS1M
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #22,877 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

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

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Lone dissenter??, July 23, 2011

By 

Bobbrun "lvsamystry" (OH USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Real Macaw: A Meg Langslow Mystery (Meg Langslow Mysteries) (Hardcover)

The book was OK, but surely not laugh out loud funny, whereas many of her previous books have been. I have truly enjoyed her previous entries in this series, BUT, my feeling is that once you have a popular series that is working, you do not throw another distracting element into the mix. In this case, it was the twins. Meg did not have time to do her zany stuff because she was too busy pumping breast milk, feeding the babies, worrying about the babies, and calling Michael to check on the babies. There were so many other characters, that no one had time to be entertaining. The standout of the whole book was the Border Collie.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fun to Read, July 19, 2011

By 

Books and Chocolate - See all my reviews
(TOP 100 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Real Macaw: A Meg Langslow Mystery (Meg Langslow Mysteries) (Hardcover)

During a 2 a.m. feeding for her four-month-old twin sons, Meg Langslow hears a noise downstairs and discovers dozens of animals from a local animal shelter have been moved into her living room. Due to budget cuts the shelter repealed its no-kill policy so her father, grandfather, and members of an animal rights group have stolen the animals out of protest and to keep them safe but when the volunteer who was to organize the clandestine transport of the animals to new homes doesn't show up, the group brings them to the only logical place: Meg and Michael's farm.

It turns out that the volunteer has been murdered and Meg discovers motive among his jealous lovers and those who are hiding a dark side of town politics. In the meantime the animals must be kept at the farm as evidence and exhausted new mom Meg gets involved in the investigation and the care of the animals while trying to care for her own babies.

I'm a fan of the Meg Langslow series and enjoyed this book. I do understand that this is fiction and not meant to be taken seriously, so I resisted the urge to overthink the idea a mom of infant twins leaving them to chase after clues while being able to still pump breast milk, keep up with feedings, and take naps with her home being overun with people and animals. I kept hoping Meg would react like a real sleep-deprived new mom and have a breakdown to restore order and boundaries but it never happened which fits with the character and sometimes comical tone of the series.

I'm not sure how Meg being a mom of two young children will work with future stories in this series but I'll read the next book to find out.

I received a copy of this book for review from the publisher but the opinion of it is my own and was not solicited, nor was a positive review required.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars laugh out loud cozy, July 20, 2011

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
(#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Real Macaw: A Meg Langslow Mystery (Meg Langslow Mysteries) (Hardcover)

Four months ago Meg Langslow gave birth to twin boys. Her sons are on different sleep cycles so she feels sleep deprived. Thus during a graveyard feeding, she assumes she is hallucinating when she hears assorted animal noises downstairs. She looks only to find a horde in her home. She asks her father, grandfather and other animal lovers what is going on; they explain the formerly no kill shelter they rescued the animals from was going to murderer them due to a lack of funds.

They were brought to Meg's living room because the transporter Parker Blair failed to show up. Police Chief Burke arrives at Meg's home to find out why her zoologist grandfather kept calling Parker who he explains was murdered. Meg promises to stay out of the investigation though she has a history of involvement (see Stork Raving Mad). She becomes upset when Mayor Pruitt wants to seize her house and other homes under eminent domain to sell to a developer in order to pay off the finance company that upgrades the Pruitt section of town. He used county buildings as collateral and the firm is ready to take possession. Someone attacks Meg's grandfather and a blue macaw is replaced by another macaw. Meg assumes the assaults are linked to the Parker homicide. She begins to ask questions while helping the county by letting them using her barn to house the library, but almost gets killed for her efforts.

Donna Andrews has written another laugh out loud cozy. The heroine deals with the twins and her husband who remains in the background with relative but sleepy ease; she handles the animal kingdom guests with calm. However, her dad and granddad are over the top of the Blue Ridge Mountains with their caring lunacy encouraged by the eccentric Caerphilly townsfolk. The whodunit is fun to follow as Meg investigates, but it is the jocularity that makes the Langslow amateur sleuths super.

Harriet Klausner