Meg Langslow and her assorted family members return to cheer us in the thirty-third mystery set in Caerphilly, Virginia. BIRDER, SHE WROTE is the latest of the entertaining bird-themed titles. The Meg Langslow series always contains a large cast, even when Meg and her husband Michael try to get away from everyone. Don’t let that worry you. Newcomers and anyone who’s missed some of the books can get along fine.
Some unfortunate events coincide. The big news locally is that a set of beehives has been made toxic, and the owner, Edgar Bortnik, has vanished. Meg suspects insecticide was used by some of the wealthier new residents, who claim they like the countryside until they notice the farming activities. A content provider from a little-known Southern ladies’ magazine, arrives to interview a surprised Grandma Cordelia, who doesn’t feel it’s a good fit but is too polite to refuse. Then, Cordelia, Meg, and Horace Hollingsworth, who is one of Meg’s cousins and the crime scene officer, assist Deacon Washington in locating a lost African-American cemetery, towing Britni Colleton, the magazine person. While in the woods, the eager tracker dogs sniff out a recently dead body near the graves. I love that these dogs are family Pomeranians.
As always, we can learn a vast amount, because every character, even walk-on parts, is an expert in something. Even the sour teen caught with a bag of an illicit substance can tell Meg about bees and hummingbirds. Kevin the IT expert in his computer-filled basement happily sets up complex surveillance methods on the beehives ahead of restoration, while Horace and Meg’s Dad, the doctor, debate the mechanics of anthills near a corpse interfering with time of death assessment. Everyone is having tremendous fun, and only poor Meg, who gets detailed in her mayor’s liaison assistant role to talk to the neighbourhood snobs, now suspects, considers anything too much trouble.
The bird lovers include the aforementioned Edgar Bortnik, who is a wildlife photographer, and just about anyone who puts out a hummingbird feeder. I guess online search now makes it easy for anyone to be well-informed. Donna Andrews has populated her mystery series with a wide array of Meg's cousins and friends, who all help out, but we spend a lot of time with the newcomer residents of Westlake on this occasion, which limits the cast list. The Brownlows, Griswalds and Walter Inman each get time and backstory. Whether they are criminals or victims remains to be discovered in BIRDER, SHE WROTE. For series fans, it’s a must-read.
Meg is relaxing in the hammock, taste-testing Michael’s latest batch of Arnold Palmers and watching the hummingbirds at their feeders when her hopes for a relaxing early summer morning are dashed.
First her father recruits her to help him install a new batch of bees in the hive in her backyard. Then Mayor Shiffley recruits her to placate the NIMBYs (Not in my backyard), as she calls them -- a group of newcomers to Caerphilly who have built McMansions next door to working farms and then do their best to make life miserable for the farmers. And finally Meg’s grandmother, shows up, trailed by a nosy reporter who is writing a feature on her for a genteel Southern ladies’ magazine.
Cordelia drafts Meg to accompany her and Deacon Washington of the New Life Baptist Church--and the reporter, alas--in their search for a long-lost African-American cemetery.
Unfortunately what they discover is not an ancient cemetery but a fresh corpse. Can Meg protect her grandmother--and Caerphilly--from the reporter who seems to see the worst in everything . . . and help crack the case before the killer finds another victim?
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