Some Like It Hawk

May 21, 2012
The future of Caerphilly, Va., is at stake in Agatha-winner Andrews’s warm, charming 14th Meg Langslow mystery (after 2011’s The Real Macaw). While the town hosts the Caerphilly Days festival for the summer tourists, under the surface the locals battle a finance company following former mayor George Pruitt’s embezzlement of the town’s funds. The festival not only helps raise sympathy for the beleaguered town but also conceals the activities of those who are stealthily supporting town recluse Phineas K. Throckmorton, who’s barricaded himself in the basement of the repossessed and guarded courthouse. When a corporate vice president is fatally shot in the courthouse basement, Throckmorton is suspected—and the town residents can’t share his alibi without revealing their secret tunnel. Blacksmith, mother, and occasional town deputy Meg must rally her resources to target the killer, just as the security hawk of the title targets Throckmorton’s pigeons. Agent: Ellen Geiger, Frances Goldin Literary Agency.

July 15, 2012
Ornamental blacksmith Meg Langslow seeks a killer who committed his dastardly deed in the basement of her hometown's courthouse, while the building's ownership is very much up for grabs. Nothing, it seems, can throw Caerphilly, Va., off its reliably eccentric rhythm. Ex-mayor George Pruitt may have mortgaged the town's public buildings to First Progressive Financial, LLC (aka Evil Lender) and embezzled the cash he raised; FPF may be threatening to foreclose on the collateral if its demands for the town to annex some choice private property through eminent domain and turn it over to FPF aren't met; town clerk Phineas K. Throckmorton may have barricaded himself in the courthouse basement in protest over a year ago. The locals simply close ranks behind Phinny, refusing to tell FPF's private eye Stanley Denton about the tunnel through which they're taking food to the embattled clerk and doing their best to protect his 11 remaining pigeons from the hawk FPF has set on them. All would be perfectly normal, or at least what passes for normal in Caerphilly, if someone didn't shoot FPF vice president Colleen Brown dead only a few yards from Phinny's barricade. It's an obvious attempt to frame the clerk and flush him out of the courthouse, but which of FPF's many minions is responsible? Before Meg can celebrate the Fourth of July by answering that question, she'll have to deal with a litigious ecdysiast mime, a uniformed security force everyone calls the Flying Monkeys and a crime scene inspector whose preferred apparel is a gorilla suit. Not even Andrews (The Real Macaw, 2011, etc.) can sustain the comic inspiration of her wacky opening premise for an entire volume, but it sure is fun to watch her try.

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August 1, 2012

Meg Langslow's little town, Caerphilly, is foreclosed, and the lender is ready to take possession of the civic center. Alas, an executive is shot, and the townsfolk scramble to find a killer in Meg's 14th humorous adventure (after The Real Macaw). [See Prepub Alert, 3/21/12.]

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 1, 2012
The town of Caerphilly, in central Virginia, is bankrupt, thanks to George Pruitt, the former mayor, said to be living in Mexico on his takings. On one side are what's left of Pruitt's followers; FPF, the financial company that foreclosed on the civic buildings; and their elaborately uniformed guards. On the other side are the townspeople, who are holding a festival, Caerphilly Days, to raise money to save their town. In the middle is the new, honest mayor. Local blacksmith and sometime sleuth Meg Langslow is already juggling the care of her twin sons and her daily blacksmithing demonstrations for the festival visitors when the mayor asks her to accompany him and reporters to the courthouse, where he once again pleads with Mr. Throckmorton to emerge. Throckmorton had barricaded himself in the year before to stay with the town's records. With the guards looking on, shots are fired, seemingly from inside the barricade, and a reporter is dead. Even as they go about the business of running Caerphilly Days, Meg, her friends, and her extended family work to prove Throckmorton's innocence in this engaging tale.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)