Meg is relaxing in the hammock, taste-testing Michael’s latest batch of Arnold Palmers and watching the hummingbirds at their feeders when her hopes for a relaxing early summer morning are dashed.

First her father recruits her to help him install a new batch of bees in the hive in her backyard. Then Mayor Shiffley recruits her to placate the NIMBYs (Not in my backyard), as she calls them – a group of newcomers to Caerphilly who have built McMansions next door to working farms and then do their best to make life miserable for the farmers. And finally Meg’s grandmother, shows up, trailed by a nosy reporter who is writing a feature on her for a genteel Southern ladies’ magazine.

Cordelia drafts Meg to accompany her and Deacon Washington of the New Life Baptist Church – and the reporter, alas – in their search for a long-lost African-American cemetery. Unfortunately what they discover is not an ancient cemetery but a fresh corpse. Can Meg protect her grandmother – and Caerphilly – from the reporter who seems to see the worst in everything . . . and help crack the case before the killer finds another victim?

Meg is relaxing in her hammock but that relaxation is not going to last long. First there is a bully hummingbird chasing all the other hummingbirds away from the feeder, then her dad arrives with the bees for their new beehive but minus Edgar, the bee expert, who was going to help him install the new hive. After the bees are in their new hive it is off to the woods to search for a lost, historic black graveyard and, being Meg, along with the graveyard they discover a dead man.  The dead man is one of the newer residents of Caerphilly who is always complaining about everything to do with living in the country especially the beehives at the missing Edgar’s farm. Add in destroyed beehives, dead bees and blackmail and it is just another day in Meg’s hectic life.

The thirty-third entry in this series is just as fresh and entertaining as the first was. Meg’s large family and circle of friends are as eccentric as ever and the herd of Pomeranians learning to be search and rescue or cadaver dogs is delightful. The mystery is not too hard to solve but not too easy either. I really enjoy this series and cannot wait for the next one. Highly recommended ~~ Stephanie L Bannon

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