Duck The Halls
Donna Andrews
Minotaur, Oct 22 2013, $24.99
ISBN 9781250028778
In Caerphilly, Virginia, merry pranksters leave angry caged skunks
inside the New Life Baptist Church. The
subsequent odor leads to relocating the annual Yuletide concert to Trinity
Episcopal Church where a Boa joins the festivities. At St. Byblig Catholic Church someone
releases a flock of ducks.
Local blacksmith Meg Langslow
struggles to find new sites to host the holiday events while Police Chief
Henry Burke struggles to find the culprits.
However the pranks turn ugly when a fire occurs in the woods near Temple
Beth-El followed by arson at the Trinity Episcopal Church. Volunteer fire chief Jim Featherstone investigates
both blazes. Not long afterward, Trinity
Episcopal Church Vestryman Barliman Vest is found dead in the furnace room with
the pranksters considered the prime suspects.
Believing they did not commit murder, Meg works the homicide to find out
who did.
The sixteenth Meg Langslow mystery (see The Hen of the
Baskervilles and Some Like It Hawk) is an amusing amateur sleuth that brings
plenty of cheer to series fans. The
brisk upbeat storyline hooks the audience with one zany prank leading to
another at ironically sacred religious edifices until a clever killer uses the
incidents to cover murder.
Harriet Klausner
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