Crouching Buzzard, Leaping Loon (Meg Langslow Series #4) » (Reprint)

Donna Andrews’s first mystery, Murder with Peacocks, won the Agatha, Anthony, and Barry Awards, a Romantic Times award for best first novel, and a Lefty for funniest mystery. She spends her free time gardening at her home in Reston, Virginia. Visit her Web site at www.donnaandrews.com.

Donna Andrews has won...

The Agatha The Anthony The Barry The Malice Domestic Award for...

Murder With Peacocks,

the first novel in her bird-themed mystery series

Now, more feathers are about to fly in. . .

Crouching Buzzard, Leaping Loon

As a favor to her brother, Meg agrees to tend the switchboard at his computer game company Mutant Wizards. For companionship, besides a crew of eccentric techies, she has a buzzard with one wing and her boyfriend's mother's nightmare dog. Not to mention the psychotherapists who refuse to give up their lease on half of the office space. This is not what Meg had in mind when she agreed to help her brother move his staff to new offices.

In fact, the atmosphere is so consistently loony that the office mail cart makes several passes through the reception room, with the office practical joker lying on top of it pretending to be dying, before Meg realizes that he's become the victim of someone who wasn't joking at all. He's been murdered for real. Now Meg has to play out one dangerous scenario to find out who's guilty-before a cold-blooded murderer ends her game for keeps.

Publishers Weekly

In Agatha and Anthony-winner Andrews's fourth wacky bird-themed mystery (Murder with Peacocks, etc.), Meg Langslow, a temporary switchboard operator at her brother Rob's computer-game company, Mutant Wizards, must find the real killer when Rob, who made his fortune from a game called Lawyers from Hell, is accused of strangling the office pest to death with a computer mouse cable. Keeping exposition to a minimum, the author lets crackling dialogue propel the plot. The office boasts a menagerie of remarkable pets, notably George, a buzzard with only one wing who has a perch by Meg's desk. There's a smile on nearly every page and at least one chuckle per chapter. The denouement may stretch credibility, but getting there is such fun it scarcely matters. (Feb. 10) Copyright 2003 Cahners Business Information.