The cast of Donna Andrews’ New York Times bestselling Meg Langslow mystery series is back for an unforgettable holiday story in The Twelve Jays of Christmas.

Meg and Michael’s annual holiday celebration is well underway, with a throng of out-of-town relatives staying at their house. Hosting these festivities is a little harder than usual—they have to relocate all the events normally held in their library, currently occupied by Roderick Castlemayne, the irascible wildlife artist who’s creating twelve paintings of birds to illustrate Meg’s grandfather’s latest nature book.

Still, the celebrations continue—and the entire family rejoices to learn that Meg’s brother Rob and his longtime fiancée Delaney have finally decided to tie the knot. Unfortunately, they decide to do this in the middle of Meg and Michael’s annual New Year’s bash, dashing their mothers’ hopes of planning the wedding to end all weddings.

Delaney’s mother sneaks into town so she and Meg’s mother can secretly plot a way to talk the happy couple into having a big bash. Hiding her only adds to Meg’s holiday stress—it’s almost a full-time job fending all the visitors who want to confront Castlemayne—reporters, bill collectors, process servers, and several ex-wives in search of unpaid alimony.

Then someone murders Castlemayne in the middle of a blizzard and sets loose the birds he was painting. Can Meg help the police crack the case before the killer strikes again? Can she keep Christmas merry in spite of the body in the library? Can she negotiate a compromise between Rob and Delaney and their disappointed mothers? And can she recapture the twelve escaped jays before they begin nesting in the Christmas tree?

This intrigue-filled Christmas mystery takes readers home to Caerphilly to join in Meg's family's holiday celebration—including, of course, another baffling mystery.

It is Christmas in Caerphilly and Meg, as usual, has a houseful of family and, unfortunately, a very unpleasant guest artist ensconced in her library painting birds for her grandfather. Along with the general chaos of Christmas she is contending with wombats in her basement and live birds that the artist inadvertently freed inside the house.  Add in Meg’s sprained ankle and the secret wedding planning by the mothers for Meg’s brother Rob and his girlfriend Delaney the last thing Meg needs is a murder but sure enough someone offs the artist in the library with a Swiss Army knife.

This is one of the quicker mysteries in the series. Murder to solution takes place in a bit under 24 hours which is fascinating since suspects abound as our victim was an incredibly unpleasant fellow. The action moves along quickly and I really didn’t suspect the culprit any sooner than Meg did.

This is an enjoyable series. I look forward to immersing myself in Meg’s world as she and her family have become old familiar friends over the years. The Christmas entries are always a delight and this month I have the pleasure of two Christmases in Caerphilly with both this entry and the newest release, Five Golden Wings.  Highly recommended. ~~ Stephanie L Bannon

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