Poor Meg Langslow. She's blessed in so many ways. Michael, her boyfriend, is a handsome, delightful heartthrob who adores her. She's a successful blacksmith, known for her artistic wrought-iron creations. But somehow Meg's road to contentment is more rutted and filled with potholes than seems fair.

There are Michael's and Meg's doting but demanding mothers, for a start. And then there's the fruitless hunt for a place big enough for the couple to live together. And a succession of crises brought on by the well-meaning but utterly wacky demands of her friends and family. Demands that Meg has a hard time refusing---which is why she's tending the switchboard of Mutant Wizards, where her brother's computer games are created, and handling all the office management problems that no one else bothers with. For companionship, besides a crew of eccentric techies, she has a buzzard with one wing---who she must feed frozen mice thawed in the office microwave---and Michael's mother's nightmare dog. Not to mention the psychotherapists who refuse to give up their lease on half of the office space, and whose conflicting therapies cause continuing dissension. This is not what Meg had in mind when she agreed to help her brother move his staff to new offices.

In fact, the atmosphere is so consistently loony that the office mail cart makes several passes through the reception room, with the office practical joker lying on top of it pretending to be dead, before Meg realizes that he's become the victim of someone who wasn't joking at all. He's been murdered for real.

Donna Andrews's debut book, "Murder with Peacocks, won the St. Martin's Malice Domestic best first novel contest and reaped a harvest of other honors as well. This is the fourth book in the Meg Langslow series, which features the intrepid Meg and her cast of oddball relatives. Their capers are a lighthearted joy to read.

Having injured her hand and being unable to work at her blacksmithing, Meg is helping her brother Rob at his computer game company. He suspects something is going on but is not sure what it might be and he hopes his sister can discover what the problem is and, more importantly, fix it. As Meg mans the switchboard and deals with the chaos that comes from game developers on deadline sharing office space with psychotherapists who refuse move their offices elsewhere things take a turn when the office practical joker turns up dead and Rob is the police’s prime suspect.

Fewer of Meg’s family are involved in this mystery, only her dad and brother with a couple of brief scenes with her mother while boyfriend Michael is in California on an acting job. But even with less family around Meg is still the voice of sanity in a sea of eccentricity in her brother’s game company. Add in a one winged buzzard and attack dog Spike, murder, blackmail,  corporate spying and house hunting and Meg has her hands full.

Again a quick and joyful read.  Meg’s family is delightfully offbeat, the denunciation with the murderer had me laughing out loud. I am so enjoying reading through this series from the beginning again and learning all about Meg’s family all over again. Recommended ~~ Stephanie L Bannon

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