Murder with Peacocks

This is a series I've been wanting to read for a long time. This first one was a hoot. I thoroughly enjoyed the adventures of Meg Langslow, uber maid of honor who is singlehandedly managing three different wedding parties scheduled in three weeks in her home town of Yorktown VA. The first is for her best friend, the second for her brother, and the third is her own mother.

Each bride is trying her best to win the Bridezilla of the year contest. Andrews has assembled one of the looniest,but lovable cast of characters yet appearing in a cozy. There is the dog who hates everyone, the duck who follows a nephew around like a dog, a group of gossipy busy-bodies, two grooms who appear to be anything but enthusiastic about their upcoming show more nuptials, another bride (Meg's mother) who insists on major room redecorating at the drop of a hat, a drunken calligrapher, a group of Vietnamese seamstresses who can only be interpreted by the son (he's so gorgeous - is he gay?) of the shop owner, and the town Doctor, ex-husband (father of Meg) who sees murder and conspiracy in every bowl of salsa. It is a knee-slapping hoot with a great story, several red herrings to go along with the parading peacocks, and a little slightly blooming romance thrown in. I can't wait to read the next in this very popular series to see what else could possibly happen. show less

I LOVE Meg Langslow! She is a great character with a wry sense of humor and flaws galore! (to whit, she can't seem to say no to anybody, even though she has her hands full already, and that she's so controlling that she really doesn't want to give any of it up!) I love her relationship with her mom and dad.. And Michael, let's just take a moment to discuss him. Let's just say that I love his character's introduction to the storyline. And to top it off, the mystery pulled me along with the rest of the menagerie Meg calls family and friends...

Murder with Peacocks (Meg Langslow #1) by Donna Andrews is a 2006 St. Martin’s Press publication. (Originally published in 1999)

Fast paced and witty!

I need to start another series like I need a hole in my head, but….

This series keeps popping up in crime novel sites I follow, or book recommendation sites, and because I already had a couple of the books on my bookshelf, I decided to read one to see how well I liked it.

Well, for better or worse, I’m hooked. This is the first installment in a very long running series. For a ‘first in a series' novel, published over seventeen years ago, it was pretty darned good. In fact, it was a riot!

Meg’s best friend, her brother, and her mother are all getting married, and Meg has been roped show more into helping them plans their weddings.

But, when her mother’s fiancé’s former sister-in-law arrives, she stirs up a real hornet’s nest, and the next thing you know her body is found. While it is quite evident the woman was murdered, the suspects are very clever, and their motives are even murkier.

With local law enforcement ill equipped to handle such a serious crime, Meg’s father rises to the occasion to play amateur detective. But, before long, Meg finds herself bitten by the detecting bug, herself. Along with her new friend, Michael, she begins to uncover shocking secrets, lies, and cover-ups, that just might lead her to the murderer!

This is a madcap, screwball family comedy on one hand, and a puzzling murder mystery on the other. Meg and her father have a special bond and work well as detection team. Meg’s inner monologue is hilarious, but also a poignant at times.

The story moves at warp speed, and is so entertaining, I finished it before I was ready to- and that is always a good sign.

So, here’s to piecing together another long running series and to many more adventures with Meg and her zany supporting cast! show less

Murder with Peacocks (Meg Langslow #1) by Donna Andrews is a 2006 St. Martin’s Press publication. (Originally published in 1999)

Fast paced and witty!

I need to start another series like I need a hole in my head, but….

This series keeps popping up in crime novel sites I follow, or book recommendation sites, and because I already had a couple of the books on my bookshelf, I decided to read one to see how well I liked it.

Well, for better or worse, I’m hooked. This is the first installment in a very long running series. For a ‘first in a series' novel, published over seventeen years ago, it was pretty darned good. In fact, it was a riot!

Meg’s best friend, her brother, and her mother are all getting married, and Meg has been roped show more into helping them plans their weddings.

But, when her mother’s fiancé’s former sister-in-law arrives, she stirs up a real hornet’s nest, and the next thing you know her body is found. While it is quite evident the woman was murdered, the suspects are very clever, and their motives are even murkier.

With local law enforcement ill equipped to handle such a serious crime, Meg’s father rises to the occasion to play amateur detective. But, before long, Meg finds herself bitten by the detecting bug, herself. Along with her new friend, Michael, she begins to uncover shocking secrets, lies, and cover-ups, that just might lead her to the murderer!

This is a madcap, screwball family comedy on one hand, and a puzzling murder mystery on the other. Meg and her father have a special bond and work well as detection team. Meg’s inner monologue is hilarious, but also a poignant at times.

The story moves at warp speed, and is so entertaining, I finished it before I was ready to- and that is always a good sign.

So, here’s to piecing together another long running series and to many more adventures with Meg and her zany supporting cast!

4 stars show less

"Murder With Peacocks" is a fun, light, witty, comedy of manners, filled with eccentric characters, powered by a compelling mixture of obsession, compassion and optimism. It could easily have been entitled "Three Weddings And A Few Murders". It made me smile and, occasionally, laugh. It was the perfect read for a lazy Bank Holiday.

The story is told from the point of view of the formidable Meg Langslow, an independent, unflappable, competent and obsessively organised young woman, who abandons her blacksmith business for the summer to return home to the small Virginia town she grew up in and where she is related to almost everyone, to manage three weddings: her best friend's, her brother's and her (recently divorced) mother's.

Armed with show more her Notebook-That-Tells-Me-When-To-Breathe (this was published in 1999, seven years before the first iPhone) she sets about the task of providing each bride with the wedding of their dreams.

Meg is immediately attracted to the gorgeous Michael (ex-soap actor and current Professor of Theatre at a posh school) who is running the bridal gown shop, Be-Stiched, in his mother's absence. She is disappointed when the local gossips tell her that Michael is gay. Her inability to see that this is untrue provides the basis for a "Twelth Night" style comedy of manners.

In the midst of the wedding madness, a guest dies in suspicious circumstances. Meg and her retired Doctor father, believe the guest was murdered. A mystery follows in which various disasters occur and some more people are killed or seriously injured.

Meg splits her time between organising recalcitrant brides, building an easy, if frustratingly Platonic, partnership with Michael and figuring out who done it.

This is a book where the weddings are more important than the murders and the humour outshines both the romance and the mystery. It is none the worse for that.

Meg, fearless, pragmatic but ultimately kind, is a wonderful creation. I enjoyed my time in her company.

The book held no surprises except for how happy and relaxed it made me feel.

Fortunately, this is book one in a series of twenty books, so I'm hoping I have a lot more relaxation and happiness ahead. show less

In this madcap mystery, Meg Langslow is just trying to get through the summer, but she finds herself overwhelmed with responsibility as the maid of honor in three weddings. A rather unlikable guest turns up dead, and Meg's father - a doctor - is certain it's foul play. When he starts investigating, other mysterious occurrences begin. Who would have killed Jane Gardner? And more importantly, can Meg get her mother's, brother's and best friend's weddings off without a hitch?

The mystery takes a backseat to humor, eccentric characters, and Meg's attempts to placate three brides. It was a funny, fast read and a series I can keep in mind when I'm in the mood for something light. Meg's family and friends are over-the-top but also ring true show more (kind of in the way Mrs. Bennet does), especially in their misguided tries to get her together with Mr. Right. show less

The first of the Meg Langslow mysteries, this kicks off with Meg, a blacksmith, packing up for the summer so she can go home to Virginia and help out with the three weddings she is maid of honour for: her best friend, Eileen, who is terminally vague and is currently considering a Native American herbal purification ceremony; her sister-in-law-to-be, Samantha, who is highly demanding and currently requiring peacocks to be sourced for her wedding; and her mother, who is marrying her new beau after an amicable divorce that was positively cheerful and who still has Meg's father pottering around, gardening.

Cue a whirlwind of far too much wedding planning (but it was fun, because you know it's all going to be a disaster), peacock wrangling, show more dodging dodgy wannabe-beaus, endless garden parties, deliciously described food, the drop-dead-gorgeous but probably gay Michael, and one dead body and what looks like a serial murder trying to bump Meg and/or her family off. And, believe me, there's a lot of family to bump off.

And therein lies the charm of this series (well, the first book, at any rate). Meg's family are charmingly, dottily, scattily, eccentric. Meg's father is a retired doctor with an obsession over crime and poisonous plants. Meg's mother is part of the local royalty and is a perfumed bulldozer who gets her own way just by expecting it. The smaller roles are delightful too, I really liked the aunts and uncles playing croquet during a garden party, and yelling "duck!" whenever a ball gets too close to the other guests. Croquet is obviously not quite as genteel as one would have expected. And Meg is terribly good fun too, with a good blend of niceness, ability, intelligence, and sass. (Sass has to be my favourite thing in literary female detectives.)

It's rather nice to have the Evil Person in a murder mystery just being unpleasant - she's mightily unpleasant, of course, but the worst thing she seems to do to Meg & her family is blatantly out one of Meg's aunts as wearing a wig.

This was also a well-plotted whodunnit, which kept me guessing until the end.

This series was originally recommended to me by my mate Miss FiFi Trixibelle (well, no, that's not really her name, but we like to torture her by calling her that), and it only just got rejigged in my memory when RichardDerus highly recommended it over on his thread. So, thank you both! It may have taken me a while to get around to it, but it was worth the wait. show less