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.
Bells are ringing and alarms are sounding in Donna Andrews' latest cheery addition in the New York Times bestselling Meg Langslow series.
Meg's sister-in-law, Delaney, is pregnant. Since her due date is on or around Christmas Day, this is putting a bit of a damper on the usual holiday festivities. Meg and Michael are NOT hosting the usual house full of relatives and parties. Instead, Meg, along with her mother, her grandmother, her cousin Rose Noire, and her good friend Caroline, are militantly doing everything they can think of to keep Delaney quiet and healthy. All the relatives are farmed out to friends and neighbors; all the parties are being held somewhere else; and while Delaney is bored and mutinous, she's doing well, and they're managing to maintain a serene, peaceful environment for her . . . until a body is found in Meg and Michael's yard.
The body turns out to be an attendee at Presumed Innocent, a nearby conference that Meg’s grandmother has organized. Some of the attendees want to learn how to exonerate a friend or family members who has been unjustly convicted, while the rest are avid true crime aficionados. And since the dead guy has been very vocal about his belief that most actual and would-be exonerees are guilty, guilty GUILTY!, nearly everyone at the conference dislikes him. But would any of them hate him enough to kill him? And can Meg still keep Delaney calm in the middle of a murder investigation, all while trying to catch the killer?
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