The Good, the Bad, and the Emus

May 26, 2014
A family riddle preoccupies Meg Langslow in Andrews’s sprightly 17th mystery featuring the Caerphilly, Va., amateur sleuth (after 2013 Duck the Halls). Meg, whose father was adopted, never met her biological grandmother. Now she has learned that grandma lived in the nearby town of Riverton, but recently died in a suspicious accident that could have been murder. Meanwhile, countless feral emus are also on the loose in Riverton, having been abandoned by the hippie who unsuccessfully tried to farm them. Meg and her extended family decide to tackle both problems at once, but another local death and a surprising twist in the family tree complicate their efforts. Hints of nonagenarian romance taking root add a little spice to the comical avian setup. Andrews’s readers, who have come to expect a little silliness, fun-loving characters, and endings that are tough to predict won’t be disappointed. Agent: Ellen Geiger, Frances Goldin Literary Agency.

July 1, 2014
Meg Langslow is looking forward to a summer of blacksmithing while her niece watches her young twin sons. Then she learns her grandfather, Dr. Blake, has hired a private investigator, Stanley Denton, to find her grandmother, Cordelia, with whom he lost touch years ago. Denton locates Cordelia in Riverton, Virginia, but learns she has recently died, murdered by their neighbor Theo Weaver, or so says Cordelia's cousin, the reclusive Annabel. Annabel promises to share family history with Meg if Meg and Stanley investigate Cordelia's death, which the police claim was an accident. Complicating matters, zoologist Dr. Blake, Meg, her many relatives, and a host of volunteers descend on Riverton to round up a group of feral emus that were released when the Biscuit Mountain Ostrich and Emu Ranches went belly up. Meg gets close to the crusty Annabel while looking into the murder and trying to keep order at Camp Emu. Humor, multiple quirky characters, and the engaging Meg's first-person narration distinguish this series, although one of the plot twists is readily apparent in this installment.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)