More serious issues, less humor | Cockatiels at Seven (Meg Langslow Mysteries)

Donna Andrews great! | Cockatiels at Seven (Meg Langslow Mysteries) | Donna Andrews

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	• Cockatiels at Seven (Meg Langslow Mysteries) Donna Andrews St. Martin's Minotaur, 2008 - 304 pages average customer review:based on 10 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

I like it

Donna Andrews' Meg Langslow is a marvelous character. I have enjoyed all her books and this is no exception. As an only child I envy Meg her large, wonderful family. Keep up the good books, Ms. Andrews.

More serious issues, less humor

This installment of the Meg Lanslow series isn't quite as funny as most of the previous volumes have been. Even when the birds get loose, it isn't the rollicking physical farce that some of the previous ones have been (parrots in the chandeliers, penguins on the croquet field...) Even Meg's relatives have calmed down some; the introduction of Dr. Blake, Meg's father's long-lost father, in the previous volume, has changed the family dynamics considerably.

I'm not saying you won't like the book - if you've been following the series, you'll certainly want to read this installment, and the mysteries involved are good ones, but it won't leave you snorting coffee out your nose suddenly, the way some of the previous books have. Or to put it another way, there were no bits that I absolutely HAD to read out loud to my spouse. One really good line about a baby wombat, but it was just a passing comment.

On the plus side, there is more than one crime committed in this volume, and the various plot threads tangle together in unexpected ways, which I did enjoy. There's the possible embezzlement at the college, the dead body (not found till halfway through the book) and the endangered species flavor of the month. There's also the mystery, though not criminal, of where Rob keeps disappearing to.

And then there's the other big question: are Meg and Michael ready to have kids? Would they be good parents? Is taking care of a friend's two-year-old unexpectedly a fair trial of how they'd cope?

Very little blacksmithing gets done, Michael is in faculty meetings for most of the book, and there are very few cockatiels involved at all. There's an emerald boa in the hot tub, and there are lots of finches. Seth Early's sheep are still around, and a few llamas; for dogs, we have Spike and later the dog of the murder victim. Oh, and there are the tropical fish over at Mutant Wizards.

If the above description leaves you a bit bewildered as to what's going on, that's a fair indication that you probably should go read a few of the previous books in the series. A great deal of the action involves the personal interactions between family members, close or distant, and if you don't have any background on the family, jumping into it in the middle like this might be a bit more puzzling than you'd expect. While you don't have to read every one of them, you'd probably be best off reading at least the first two in the series and then the one immediately previous to this one, before tackling this one.

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Donna Andrews great!

I looked forward to this book about this family and the connection to animals, etc. Always fun, and I was not disappointed.

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worth reading, especially for fans of the series

I've grown to love the Meg Langslow books written by Donna Andrews. They are light-hearted and fluffy, filled with quirky characters and amusing side plots. They're great fun to read when you don't want to think too hard.

But the past few books in the series have left me somewhat disappointed. Why give your female protagonist an awesome job (blacksmith) and then almost never touch on it again? For the first time in several installments, Meg is back to work in this book, but it only last a few pages before she's interrupted. Andrews also has a habit of finishing off the main mystery rather quickly at the end and leaving a lot of loose ends. In Cockatiels at Seven, you find out "who dunnit", but not why or how, and this leads to a rather unsatisfying ending.

Still, Meg's inner voice is as amusing as ever, her husband is charming, her relatives are wacky, and the book flies by quickly. Anyone who has read the earlier books in this series will want to read Cockatiels at Seven. Newcomers looking for a good, light-hearted mystery might want to try some of the earlier works by Donna Andrews.

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It?s time for more outrageous and feathered fun in the award-winning, laugh-out-loud Meg Langslow series.

When her old friend Karen drops by with two-year-old son Timmy, Meg Langslow reluctantly agrees to babysit ?just for a little while.? But when nightfall comes, the toddler is still in residence and Karen isn?t answering any phone calls. Meg decides she must find out what?s happening, so the next morning, with Timmy in tow, she retraces her friend?s footsteps---and begins to suspect that Karen?s disappearance is tied to at least one serious crime. Has Karen been killed or kidnapped? Is she on the run from the bad guys? Or is she one of the bad guys? The police don?t seem to care, so Meg once again plays sleuth---this time with a toddler as her sidekick.

As usual, Meg?s extended family adds to the complications in her life. What covert animal welfare project are Dad and the curmudgeonly zoologist Dr. Montgomery Blake working on---and will Meg have to make another late-night trip to bail them out of jail? Why does Meg?s brother keep disappearing---is he merely trying to avoid babysitting, or is he involved in something more mysterious? Will taking care of Timmy dampen newly married Meg and Michael?s enthusiasm for starting a family of their own? And are any of Meg?s relatives reliable enough to be trusted with a two-year-old---especially a two-year-old whose whereabouts might be of interest to some very dangerous people?

Donna Andrews once again proves her skill as one of the funniest, most entertaining mystery authors around.

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