i thought turkeys could fly

Meg Langslow has a lot of jobs in Caerphilly. She is a blacksmith as well as a wife and mother of twins. She also helps out the mayor with special projects, soothing ruffled feathers when she can and recruiting various family members to help out when someone needs a quite place to do work, a place to stay, a lawn cleared of invasive weeds, or some advice on how to deal with a flock of feral turkeys. Oh, and she helps solve crimes.

So when the reality television home makeover show Marvelous Mansions comes to Cerphilly, specifically Bland Street, to remodel the Smetkamp’s house, Meg had to show up to help calm neighbors who were upset about the noise. What she finds is a large flock of feral turkeys in the Smetkamp’s lawn and trees, terrorizing anyone who comes close and generally making a mess. The turkeys are not new to town. They had been around for several years, and the mayor had been trying to figure out a way to get them under control. But they had never been on Bland Street. Clearly, someone had brought them there to disrupt the filming.

That means Meg’s first order of business is to help figure out a way to extract dozens of wild turkeys and finding a place for them to stay. She offers up her farm as a safe place for the neighbors to stay for the duration of the turkey wrangling, or even the whole remodel. A couple of people from the neighborhood take her up on that and head out. When she goes in to the Smetkamp house to see if Mrs. Smetkamp is willing to leave while they move the turkeys, she and the mayor find out that the team from the remodel show have gone overboard in the demo, taking out some load-bearing walls. The mayor insists that Mrs. Smetkamp leave until he can get some engineers in to make sure that it’s safe to be in the house.

The next morning, the Turkey Wrangling Team is up before dawn. There is a place at the zoo to house them, and everyone is in place with their hard hats and helmets, armed with garden implements and umbrellas to keep the turkeys moving in the right direction. But Mrs. Smetkamp is nowhere to be found. She’s not in the house, and it’s not until Meg checks the small shed out back that the mystery is solved. But another one is just beginning, because Mrs. Smetkamp was clearly murdered.

There is no shortage of suspects. Mrs. Smetkamp was not one to make friends, so her neighbors were not happy with her, even before she got a reality tv show to remodel her house. There is a young man who rented out the attic apartment across the street, and he rarely leaves. His behavior is suspicious, but would he have any reason to kill Mrs. Smetkamp? Was is her husband (the husband is always a suspect)? Was it someone with the show? Meg is ready to put all her resources towards solving the mystery, all the mysteries, really. But when the killer figures out how close she’s getting to the truth, will she find a way to alert the authorities, or will she be too late for prime time?

Between a Flock and a Hard Place is book 35(!) in Donna Andrews’ popular Meg Langslow series. I can’t say I’ve read all the books in the series, but I have read a lot. I’ve spent a lot of time with Meg and her family, so getting a new book from Andrews is such a treat. It’s like a vacation from reality, to spend time with my favorite family and hearing all about their crazy adventures. When I am stressed or unhappy, a trip to Caerphilly never disappoints. And this time was another fantastic trip to Virginia, and I’m already dreaming of going back again.

I listened to Between a Flock and a Hard Place, narrated beautifully by Bernadette Dunne. Things in my head have felt a little frantic lately, so when I started listening, I thought it was excruciatingly slow. Which is not unlike living in the American South for the first time. But the more I listened, the more it felt right and I was able to relax into the slower pace of Southern life and just enjoy the story. It’s a fun story, with puppies and parrots that listen to audio books (and quote back Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, or George Carlin, depending on the parrot) and more puppies and so much delicious food.

I loved Between a Flock and a Hard Place. I mean, I’m a long-time fan of Andrews and this crazy Caerphilly she’s crafted, so I pretty much always love these books. And maybe that shows because I have to admit I knew who the killer was right away. But knowing that and still having to watch the whole story unfold was not the slightest bit disappointing. I was entertained through the whole story, and as always, I was a little disappointed when it was over. There were lots of good red herrings and distractions throughout, so there was never a dull moment in this story. If you haven’t yet tried one of Andrews’s mysteries, this is a fun one because of the home remodeling show. If you have, then you know how good it’s going to be and you can just jump right in.

Egalleys for Between a Flock and a Hard Place were provided by Minotaur Books, and an early copy of the audiobook was provided by Macmillan Audio, both through NetGalley, with many thanks.