After the chaos of the summer (weddings, peacocks and murder among other things, chronicled in Murder with Peacocks) Meg Langslow and her boyfriend Michael are desperate for some time and space to themselves. Meg suggests they go to the island of Monhegan off the coast of Maine, where her Aunt Phoebe has a summer cottage and Meg has an open invitation. There might not be any electricity and it is no longer exactly summer, but that should just help insure they get some peace and quiet. Meg couldn't be more wrong. They arrive along with a coming hurricane to find the island swarming with bird watchers - and Meg's parents (back from their honeymoon in Europe), her brother Rod, Aunt Phoebe and Aunt Phoebe's friend Mrs Fenniman. The cottage is already full and Michael ends up sharing a room with Rod while Meg gets the sofa. So much for a romantic getaway. Things only get worse after Meg and Michael find themselves in a confrontation with local artist Victor Resnick, who take potshots at them when they stray onto his land. They soon discover no-one on Monhegan likes Resnick and he likes no-one in return. This includes Meg's parents, since her mother knew him when she spent summers on the island as a teenager and local gossip has it that Meg's father is intensely jealous of this. Then the hurricane hits, the island is cut off, Meg's father and Aunt Phoebe go AWOL at the height of the storm and when Meg and Michael go looking for her father the next morning they find Resnick instead, face down in a tidal pool and quite, quite dead. Meg's father is immediately considered a suspect and when Meg and Michael find a draft of a horribly purple prosed biography of Resnick that implies he had an affair with Meg's mother when she was only fifteen, things look even worse. Meg takes it upon herself to solve the case, clear her father and save her mother's reputation, all before the hurricane abates enough for the ferry to start running again and the mainland authorities can arrive. Like its predecessor, this book was wonderfully fun to read. Meg is a great character, her family remains totally insane and Michael puts up with them all with great grace. Andrews has had much fun with the chapter titles, taking known titles and sayings and substituting "puffin" in there somewhere. Examples include "A Long Day's Journey into Puffin" and "Zen and the Art of Puffin Maintenance". My main reservation is that as I approached the end, I began to feel that the focus on the book was much more on the detection than on the solution. Working out who did it suddenly seemed to take about thirty seconds, and any following confrontation with the murderer seemed anti-climatic, as if it was just a side issue. Indeed, the book didn't end there, since it was now more important for Meg and Michael to discover the author of the awful Resnick biography and find a way to hush up any potential scandal. All of which they manage of course, even if some of their methods are far from conventional. That said, this is still a very fun book to read. I thoroughly enjoyed going along for the ride with Meg and Michael and I look forward to their further adventures.[Copied across from Library Thing; 25 September 2012]
#2 in the Meg Langslow series. Another cute mystery, continuing with the very enjoyable characters in the first book. Meg is an intelligent and talented woman with a good sense of humor and amusing way of looking at things. Her family is eccentric and hilarious, so she seems like the down-to-earth one, although she's the one who stumbles across dead bodies. In this case she and boyfriend Michael decide on a quiet romantic getaway to her aunt's secluded cottage on an island off Maine's coast. Unfortunately the weekend they go ends up being in the middle of a hurricane, but it doesn't really matter since her entire family turns out to be there, even though it's way past the summer season. When a dead body shows up, Meg and Michael spend quite some time investigating, which isn't really so far-fatched since the police can't get there until the storm is over, and there are a lot of suspects among the locals, the birdwatching tourists, and even within her own family (which is what prompts her to try to find the killer on her own). She and Michael laugh at the same things and are really just starting their romance, which makes them endearingly desperate to have some time alone. Meg's father (the absent-minded doctor), her mother (the drama queen), brother Rob (computer nerd), and Aunt Phoebe (another drama queen) are all very enjoyable secondary characters who add a lot of charm and humor. I loved how she used famous titles as the chapter headings, but she inserted the word "puffin" into each one (From Puffin to Eternity, Abandon Puffins All Ye Who Enter Here, etc.) Very enjoyable; I already have the next ready to pick up at the library.
What do You think about Murder With Puffins (2001)?
In the second book in the Meg Langslow mystery series Meg sees herself stranded with her boyfriend, parents, aunt, brother, and neighbor on a secluded island in Maine during a hurricane with a murderer running around loose. Murder with Puffins was an enjoyable book.I really like the MC, Meg, she's a smart character who doesn't do many things stupidly. She thinks problems and her actions through before doing them and she pieces together things that I'd never be able to do. I also absolutely love Meg's mom and dad, they are two of the most hilarious characters that I've read in a cozy series.The mystery was alright, it sort of lost some steam in the middle of the book and it took me awhile to get through about 50 of the pages in the middle of the book because it did lose steam. The killer was kind of obvious, but there was a nice pool of suspects.Overall an average mystery with amazing characters. I'll read the next one
—Jonathan
This murder mystery book was quite entertaining, but was not very suspenseful. The story has many twists and turns that keeps the reader wanting to find out more, though.The overall story is interesting; Meg wants a romantic getaway but ends up being stuck in an island because of a hurricane in a cottage with her family, and she ends up investigating the death of a person who everyone disliked which thus leads to her finding out some secrets of her family and the locals.The characters in the story (a total of about 20) are realistic and they have much dialogue throughout the story.I really liked how the reader learns more about the dead person at the same time that Meg and Michael are investigating the murder. The book is quite humorous especially with the each chapters' title which make reference to puffins and relevancy to the what is going to occur in each chapter (es. The Puffin Who Knew Too Much).I also liked how there was some inclusion of realistic aspects and scenarios for the character of Meg. By this I mean that the author included instances of Meg thinking of her relationship with Michael and her femininity. This made the story veer off topic for a second, but it added interest to the story nonetheless.Overall, this book is a nice and quick mystery read.
—Jessica
The second in the Meg Langslow series of books finds Meg & her boyfriend Micheal trying to enjoy a romantic weekend on a remote Maine island. Unbeknownst to the couple many of Meg's family has also arrived at the small island cottage. To add to the chaos a hurricane is threatening the island, ferry services are cancelled, birders appear to be swarming the village & then Meg's family is threatened by a suspicious death. Can Meg, with the help of Michael, solve the murder before the authorities arrive and consider her father or her Aunt as the likely culprit? A funny, enjoyable read. A few loose ends remain at the denouement that precludes a higher rating.
—Anne
