Six Geese A-Slaying
A Meg Langslow Christmas Mystery
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- £9.99
Publisher Description
In Six Geese A-Slaying, Donna Andrews fans delivers another zany Meg Langslow mystery---this one filled with outrageous Christmas spirit…and mayhem.
Meg and Michael's house is serving as the marshaling point for the annual Caerphilly Christmas parade. The theme is "The Twelve Days of Christmas," and it features twelve drummers from the school marching band, eleven bagpipers, ten leaping lords costumed in medieval finery from the college drama department, etc. There are also assorted Christmas-themed floats, a live nativity scene on a flatbed truck, the Three Wise Men on Caerphilly zoo camels, and Santa Claus in a bright red horse-drawn sleigh (eight reindeer were beyond the zoo's scope).
Meg has been volunteered to organize the parade, which is to proceed from her house to the local campus, where Santa will take up residence to hear the Christmas wishes of the town's children. Of course, getting all the camels, pipers, leapers, and drummers in order is proving every bit as difficult as Meg feared it would be. Then her nephew Eric, wide-eyed and ashen-faced, whispers, "Meg, something's wrong with Santa."
The local curmudgeon, whose beard and belly made him a natural for the role, has been murdered. Now Meg and Chief Burke, who is playing one of the wise men, are faced with the two-fold mission of solving the murder and saving Christmas!
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Bah, humbug! In the 10th entry in Andrews's fine-feathered cozy series (Cockatiels at Seven, etc.), Meg Langslow is having a tough enough time trying to organize the Christmas parade, with its Twelve Days of Christmas theme, in Caerphilly, Va. Then someone drives a stake through the heart of Santa, played by grouchy Ralph Doleson, who hates children and animals (and no, he's not a vampire). Finding the killer who could totally spoil Christmas becomes number one priority for perky amateur sleuth Meg. Suspects include protesting members of SPOOR (Stop Poisoning Our Owls and Raptors), six of whose members are playing geese in the parade, a local woman whom Doleson may have been blackmailing and a nosy Washington Tribune reporter. Though Andrews strains for humorous effect at times and the revelation of whodunit may strike some readers as far-fetched, fans will enjoy catching up with old friends among the regular cast of characters.
