Donna Andrews

Murder, With Peacocks: A Meg Langslow Mystery

Donna Andrews

• 2000 Anthony-1st Novel winner
• 2000 Barry-1st Novel winner
• 1999 Agatha–1st Novel winner
• 2000 Macavity-1st Novel nominee
• Score: 36.5

Donna Andrews introduces a cast of quirky characters who will pull her heroine in different directions as she plans three successive summer weddings.

When Meg Langslow is roped into being a bridesmaid for the nuptials of her mother, her brother’s fiancee, and her own best friend, she is apprehensive. Getting the brides to chose their outfits and those of their bridesmaids (and not change their minds three days later), trying to capture the principals long enough to work out details, and even finding peacocks to strut around the garden during the ceremony—these…

You've Got Murder

Donna Andrews

• 2002 Agatha–Novel winner
• Score: 10.52

When a workaholic techie misses work for several days, his friend, Turing, does the only neighborly thing and checks in on Zack. She checks to see if he’s logged in from home. No luck. Then she skims the databases of local banks. Nothing. Next she searches hospital records throughout the state. No Zack.

Turing is no crazed stalker: she is an artificial intelligence personality of Zack’s creation. But, unlike other AIPs, Turing is sentient-and she senses foul play. She finds clues, but Zack’s enemies may well lie in the real world-outside the planet of the…

The Penguin Who Knew Too Much: A Meg Langslow Mystery

Donna Andrews

• 2007 Agatha–Novel nominee
• Score: 6.57

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.

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.

Owls Well That Ends Well: A Meg Langslow Mystery

Donna Andrews

• 2005 Agatha–Novel nominee
• Score: 6.55

In Owls Well That Ends Well, Meg and Michael have bought a very elderly house from the estate of the uncrowned Queen of the Packrats. She bought everything and kept it all. When the house became overcrowded, she moved the overflow into the barn. When the barn was crammed, she began filling the property’s sheds. When she died, her “holdings” left the various grandnieces and grandnephews with decades of junk. They avoid the job of cleaning it up by selling the place “as is” to Meg and Michael, sticking them with the lot. Their solution: a yard sale.

As…

We'll Always Have Parrots: A Meg Lanslow Mystery

Donna Andrews

• 2004 Agatha–Novel nominee
• Score: 6.54

Meg Langslow knew the fan convention for her actor-boyfriend’s hit television series was going to be the ultimate in weird. But she came along because she figured Michael could use an occasional dose of sanity-and because it was an inspired place to sell her hand-crafted weapons. And so far, she was dealing pretty well with the costumed fans camped outside, the batch of escaped parrots and monkeys frolicking throughout the hotel…and the minefield of egos lurking behind the show’s success.

But soon after Meg goes head-to-head with egomaniacal series star…

Crouching Buzzard, Leaping Loon

Donna Andrews

• 2003 Agatha–Novel nominee
• Score: 6.53

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…