Die Like an Eagle

June 27, 2016
In Agatha-winner Andrews’s charming 20th Meg Langslow mystery (after 2015’s Lord of the Wings), tenacious Meg must tangle with the dictatorial Summerball Youth Baseball League president and town contractor, Biff Brown. As special assistant to the mayor of Caerphilly, Va., Meg has had the job of hounding dodgy Biff about his unfulfilled government contracts. He’s clearly responsible for the dilapidated baseball field, where one day before a game the umpire, who happens to be Biff’s half-brother, is found dead of a gunshot wound inside the ball field’s lone portable toilet. Was Biff the culprit? Since plenty of people around the league (and the town, and the county), including family members, have a beef with Biff, Meg suspects that the bullet that hit his look-alike half-brother was really meant for him. As always, Meg turns sleuth and jumps to the rescue when needed. With its well-spun plots and distinctive characters, Andrews’s amusing avian-named series shows no signs of growing stale. Agent: Ellen Geiger, Frances Goldin Literary Agency.

August 1, 2016
Biff Brown, the opinionated, verbally abusive head of the Summerball Youth Baseball League, is giving Meg Langslow headaches on two fronts. First of all, her twin sons are in the league, and Biff runs it like a dictatorship. Second, Biff is the owner of the construction company that is contracted to renovate the Caerphilly, Virginia, town square by Memorial Day, six weeks away, and nothing has been done; Meg, as executive assistant to the mayor, has been leaving Biff daily messages, which he is dodging. When Biff's half-brother, Shep Henson, is found murdered in a Porta-Potty, the consensusis that he was mistaken for Biff, who has no shortage of enemies. Meg, along with help from her relatives, friends, and other baseball parents, works to unseat Biff as head of the league, while investigating him as a possible murderer. As always, the ever efficient Meg and the quirky townspeople of Caerphilly add humor to a long-running, satisfying series that will appeal to fans of Nancy Atherton's family-centered, village-set Aunt Dimity series.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)

March 15, 2016

Andrews launched her career with the Malice Domestic Contest-winning Murder with Peacocks, which grabbed Agatha, Anthony, Barry, and Romantic Times honors for best first novel, and has since gone on to New York Times best-selling success. Here, in her 19th mystery, she stays funny and avian-themed as heroine Meg Langslow battles the famously nasty Biff Brown, head of the league to which her twin sons' youth baseball team belongs. Meg investigates when Biff's remarkably similar-looking brother is found dead in the ball field's Porta-Potty. Maybe Biff was the intended victim?

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