Murder most fowl / Donna Andrews.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

A Shakespearean twist on the long-running Meg Langslow mystery series in Murder Most Fowl , the next installment from Donna Andrews, award-winning, New York Times bestselling author of The Falcon Always Wings Twice.

Meg Langslow's in for a busy summer. Her husband is directing a production of Macbeth , and most of the cast and crew are occupying spare bedrooms in their house. She also has to keep an eye on Camp Birnam, where a group of medieval reenactors are commemorating the real-life Macbeth by setting up what they fondly believe is an authentic medieval Scottish military camp.

And then there's Damien Goodwin, a filmmaker who has been hanging around, trying to document the production. When Goodwin hosts a showing of some of the footage he's taken, he manages to embarrass or offend just about everyone. The next morning Meg isn't exactly surprised to find that someone has murdered him.

But who? Some people's motives were obvious from the footage: the couple whose affair was revealed . . . the bombastic leader of the reenactors, who could be facing years in prison if the evidence from the video helps convict him of sheep stealing . . . the actress who's desperately trying to downplay a health issue that could cost her the role of her life. Other motives are only hinted at--did the filmmaker have other footage that would reveal why one of the actors is behaving so furtively?

Unfortunately, whoever murdered Goodwin also destroyed all the electronic devices on which his video was stored. So Caerphilly's chief of police--and Meg--must rediscover the same secrets the filmmaker did if they want to catch a killer.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

In multi-award-winning Andrews's Murder Most Fowl, Meg Langslow's husband is directing a production of Macbeth even as gung-ho reenactors erect an authentic medieval Scottish military camp nearby, which ends in the murder of the unpleasant filmmaker documenting the reenactment (40,000-copy first printing). A BAFTA and multiple mystery award winner, novelist/filmmaker Claudel limns the current refugee crisis, with the inhabitants of backwater Dog Island refusing to disrupt their age-old way of life when three unidentified bodies wash ashore, deciding instead to bury them. In Edgar Award winner Hirahara's 1944-set Clark and Division, 20-year-old Aki, who has moved with her parents to Chicago after their release from the Manzanar concentration camp in California, refuses to believe that her sister Rose's death is a suicide. Lightning Strike, a prequel to Krueger's "Cork O'Connor" series, features Cork's coming-of age in small-town 1963 Minnesota. In Muller's Ice and Stone, durable PI Sharon McCone is enlisted by the organization Crimes Against Indigenous Sisters when two more Indigenous women are brutally dispatched in what the police refuse to regard as a pattern (25,000-copy first printing). The Madness of Crowds, the next in Penny's sensational "Chief Inspector Gamache" series, sends the chief inspector home to Three Pines, Canada, after a sojourn in Paris. Following Trinchieri's well-received debut, Murder in Chianti, The Bitter Taste of Murder finds former NYPD Nico Doyle comfortably settled in his late wife's Tuscan hometown--until the ruthless wine critic who's just arrived is murdered.

Publishers Weekly Review

Bestseller Andrews's quirky 29th Meg Langslow mystery (after 2020's The Gift of the Magpie) finds Meg's husband, professor Michael Waterston, directing a production of Macbeth for the Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. The rehearsals are being held on Meg and Michael's farm outside of Caerphilly, Va., and besides hosting the entire cast and crew, Meg is also dealing with a troupe of medieval reenactors who are clumsily attempting to recreate a medieval Scottish military camp in the woods behind her house. On top of it all, the production--and Meg--are plagued by an obnoxious, intrusive documentary filmmaker; a mysterious vandal; and three "witches" brewing evil potions in the woods at night. The day after the filmmaker shows a rough cut of his unflattering documentary, he's found dead and his equipment destroyed. Was it because his video contained incriminating evidence? Andrews's long-running family saga is packed with eccentric characters, witty digressions, and endearing animals galore. And what a family it is: odd, funny, and endearing. Readers will want to come on in, have a seat, and watch the fun as Meg manages the chaos. Agent: Ellen Geiger, Frances Goldin Literary. (Aug.)

Booklist Review

Meg Langslow's rural Virginia home is overrun by the cast and crew of her husband's upcoming production of Macbeth, while a group of reenactors, re-creating an eleventh-century Scottish military camp and led by the annoying Calum MacLeod, are camping in the nearby woods. Adding to the chaos, there have been several acts of vandalism, Lady Macbeth is continually under the weather, and the English department at the local college is trying to sabotage the production in a turf war. Even worse, blogger/filmmaker Damien Goodwin is filming everything. When Goodwin previews some of his footage, many people are portrayed in embarrassing to downright criminal situations, leading to numerous suspects when he is later murdered. Meg must protect her livestock, deal with sheep-nappers, rein in the reenactors, and identify who is casting dark spells while she uncovers both the vandal and the killer. Fans will relish this entry in the long-running cozy series, with its humor, portrayal of small-town and rural life, and large cast of familiar, well-drawn, quirky characters, all framed by details of mounting a production of Macbeth.

Kirkus Book Review

Still another group of historical reenactors wreaks havoc on Caerphilly, Virginia, where bedlam already reigns supreme. Drama professor Michael Waterston's decision to rehearse the D.C. theater company Arena Stage's new production of Macbeth might have seemed a good idea at the time. But it's reopened old scars in Drama's running battle with Caerphilly College's English department and forced Drama into an uneasy alliance with History that's already showing some strain. Case in point: a deeply misbegotten invitation to the Dystopian Alternate Realities Krew to establish Camp Birnam, an 11th-century Scottish reenactment. DARK leader Calum MacLeod, ne Christopher Miller, is clearly off the rails. So is documentary filmmaker Damien Goodwin, who's both a nuisance and a crank. Celia Rivers, the production's Lady Macbeth, is beset by mounting digestive distress, and the mean girls led by Gina, the Second Witch, seem intent on outdoing the three weird sisters. And of course there's the obligatory vandalism of property and mistreatment of animals. Following a screening of a Goodwin supercut video that delights in catching everyone from self-anointed Shakespeare professor Desmond Philpotts to Russ Brainard, who plays Banquo, in embarrassing situations, the documentarist is bashed to death with his own camera. Luckily, Michael's battle-hardened wife, ornamental blacksmith Meg Langslow, is on hand to help police chief Henry Burke and senior deputy Vern Shiffley overcome the curse of the Scottish play, sift through layers and layers of mischief, and choose from among all these zanies the perpetrators of a surprisingly expansive flock of actual crimes. Fans will appreciate the helpful final chapter, which indicates exactly which malefactors have earned which legal punishment. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Donna Andrews was born in Yorktown, Virginia. She is the author of two amateur sleuth series: Turing Hopper Mystery series and A Meg Langslow Mystery series. Her first book, Murder with Peacocks (1999), which is part of A Meg Langslow Mystery series, won numerous awards for best first novel including the Lefty award for funniest mystery. You've Got Murder (2002), the first novel in the Turing Hopper Mystery series, won the Agatha Award for best mystery. She is a member of Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, and the Private Investigators and Security Association.

(Bowker Author Biography)