Meg Langslow embarks on her thirty-sixth mystery in this long running, amiable amateur sleuth series. Meg and her husband Michael have now teenaged non-identical twins, Jamie and Josh, and assorted pets. Their large home in Caerphilly, Virginia, is going to be quieter than usual this Christmas, as Meg’s sister-in-law, Delaney, is expecting and needs a lot of bed rest. They are still ROCKIN’ AROUND THE CHICKADEE as Delaney loves watching the little birds on the feeder outside her window.

While Delaney has the company of her husband Rob, and cousin Rose Noire, Meg attends her nephew Kevin’s talk at a Presumed Innocence Conference in a swanky hotel. Several true crime podcasters attend, and the idea is to help those who wish to exonerate people who were wrongly convicted of crimes. One attendee who was freed by new DNA evidence is Ezekiel Blaine, who is training a little dog, Ruth, as a therapy dog. Another attendee at the hotel is known as Gadfly, who is Godfrey Norton, a social media troll trying to persuade others that all convicts are in jail for genuine reasons and should not be cleared. One night the unpleasant troll, who hasn’t made any friends locally, is killed, and his body is found the following morning behind a barn in Meg’s large garden.  

With an expectant mother on the premises, Meg, who is assistant to the mayor, gets extremely concerned. Chief Burke, crime scene tech Horace Hollingsworth and techie Kevin are all involved in detection, as are of course Meg’s doctor father and biologist grandfather, and just about anyone in the extended family who can get a word in edgeways. Most of the conference attendees are newcomers.

With fewer Christmas scenes than might be expected, and some of Meg's relatives seemingly just namechecked, this is a more serious crime book than Donna Andrews usually provides. We get statistics on how many denizens of jails across the country might be wrongly convicted, and it’s a large number, but not mentioned is the possibility that some might be habitual criminals who weren’t convicted for their other crimes. Of course, nobody wants to think an amateur sleuth story might be falsely convicting someone, so the killer normally does some admitting by the end.

ROCKIN’ AROUND THE CHICKADEE has dramatic moments, and good fun, and the twins play a major role in crime solving, with the good examples shown by their relatives throughout the Meg Langslow series.