Rockin' Around the Chickadee by Donna Andrews Narrator: Bernadette Dunne
Series: Meg Langslow #36
Published by Macmillan Audio on October 15, 2024
Source: NetGalley
Genres: Cozy Mystery
Length: 8 hrs 57 mins
Pages: 288
Format: Audiobook
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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. Can Meg still keep Delaney calm in the middle of a murder investigation, all while trying to catch the killer? Full of her usual twists and turns, paired with relatable family holiday drama and Caerphilly’s traditional Christmas merriment, Donna Andrews brings readers another joyful classic.
Rockin’ Around the Chickadee is #36 of the Meg Langslow books, a series I dip in and out of. I think that’s part of my problem with it. Andrews does a good job with the characters growing and changing, but I only catch bits of it. But it’s way too long a series for me to go back to the beginning.
Meg is a blacksmith, wife of professor/ actor Michael, mother of twin boys, assistant to the mayor, and a member of the quirky Hollingsworth family, and, of course, our amateur sleuth. She wears a lot of hats and in each book one or the other seems to be at the forefront. This time, being a member of the Hollingsworth family is at the top of the list. Her grandmother is hosting a conference highlighting the Presumed Innocent organization and several of the family members are helping by being on panels or making sure it all runs smoothly. While most attendees are either true crime buffs or hoping for help proving someone innocent, there is one man who is against the purpose of the conference and makes his opinions well-known. It’s no surprise he ends up dead, but it is unfortunate that his body is found in Meg’s backyard.
The conference gives us plenty of suspects in the murder. The mystery unfolds at a good pace even in the midst of all the family activities, with Meg gathering clues and even getting her boys to help out a bit. The identity of the killer is not a surprise, but at least one of the characters didn’t see it coming.
Overall, it was a fun book. I listened to the audio version and the narrator did a good job keeping all the characters straight and the tone, even while discussing serious topics, light.
About Donna Andrews
Donna Andrews was born in Yorktown, Virginia, the setting of Murder with Peacocks and Revenge of the Wrought Iron Flamingos, and now lives and works in Reston, Virginia. When not writing fiction, Andrews is a self-confessed nerd, rarely found away from her computer, unless she’s messing in the garden
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