Bibliophilic Friday: Murder with Peacocks by Donna Andrews (Review by Nancy L. Eady)

Murder with Peacocks is the first of (currently) 36 books in the Meg Langslow series, a cozy mystery series written by Donna Andrews. The series is one of my favorites, partly because the books are well written and partly because each book has parts in it that are laugh-out-loud funny. There aren’t many books that do that for me. Many books amuse me, or make me smile, or leave me with a warm humorous glow inside when I finish reading but laugh out loud funny is a higher level. Each book is just as funny on subsequent readings as it was the first time. When I am re-reading the series and Mark is around, he will be regaled with various scenes I read out loud to share the humor with him. 

Ms. Andrews often, but not always, publishes two books in the series a year – the first one usually comes out in August and is a “normal” mystery in the sense that it is not restricted to a particular time of year, while the second one usually comes out in October with a Christmas theme. I like to reread an entire series when a new book comes out, although in Meg’s case, I compromise just the tiniest bit with a complete reread for the August book that I let count for the October book as well. 

Murder with Peacocks is one of the funniest of the books in the series. Since it is the first book, it introduces the reader to the main character, Meg Langslow, as she returns to her hometown of Yorktown for the summer to serve as the maid of honor in three weddings – her best friend’s, her brother’s and her mother’s. Meg narrates the book and I enjoy her voice, often the sole voice of reason in the madhouse that is otherwise known as her extended family, but a voice that tackles the role of “sensible” with panache and humor, recognizing there are some eccentricities in even the best families that must not only be dealt with but celebrated.  Meg is a blacksmith by trade. 

Other regular characters introduced in the book are Michael Waterston, a drama professor from a college in Northern Virginia spending the summer minding his mother’s dress shop while she recuperates from surgery, and Meg’s father, mother and brother, who figure heavily in subsequent stories. Cousin Horace, who is introduced in the first book as a mild-mannered, shy individual who often goes to parties dressed in a moth-eaten gorilla costume, blooms out later in the series to become a full-fledged crime scene investigator. 

The writer also describes small-town Southern culture accurately with the gentle humor that only someone who has lived with it can. I’ve been in the small-town South since 1991, and I recognize the authenticity. Even after so many years though, every once in a while, someone in the grocery store stops me when I’m talking to them to say, “You’re not from around here, are you?” 

The juxtaposition of weddings and murder is unusual, but the author manages it well. Actually, weddings and murders may not be so unusual come to think of it. My husband Mark and I consider wedding preparations to be a sort of “hell week” razing preparatory to marriage. Before my own wedding, my mother and I got in a serious argument over the color of the bridesmaid dresses – she wanted a blue and I wanted a teal – only to find out at a bridal show we were talking about the same color. My youngest sister still rolls her eyes at me over that one, thirty-seven years after the wedding. And then there was the difficulty of explaining to my mother why we couldn’t have a champagne fountain if we were going to have the reception in the Baptist Church Hall. By the time of the wedding though, we had it all worked out, and in many, but not all, ways, the same is true for Meg and her weddings, although Meg (and the reader) are in for a few surprises along the way. 

But I digress, as so often happens. If you enjoy cozy mysteries set in the upper South with a strong dash of humor and an independent minded heroine as the narrator, give Murder with Peacocks a try. If you’re lucky, you’ll be as hooked on the series as I was and end up with hours of reading pleasure as you wind your way through the series.