digging this book

There is never a dull moment at the farm owned by Meg Langslow and her husband Michael. Fortunately for her, she has family nearby where she can go when she needs a moment of peace. Her place is the staging area for the Mutt March, a new event where they are having a parade down Main Street with literally hundreds of dogs and dozens of volunteers, to try to get the dogs adopted to loving families. So Meg decides to go to her brother Rob and sister-in-law Delaney’s farm to watch them break ground on a new duck pond.

At least in theory.

Meg’s life is never that simple, though, so it’s not that much of a surprise when the bulldozer operator suddenly turns off his equipment to point out that he’s found bones. Meg calls the police, and the police chief as well as an archeologist from the local college come to take a look. It turns out that they have found a skeleton buried in the yard. However, it wasn’t a recent burial.

As more of the bones are uncovered, the archeologist and Meg’s father, a doctor, determine that the skeleton belong to a man and that he had been killed maybe 30 or 40 years before. They think he had been not much more than a kid, maybe 15-25, but they do know how he died, from the bullet hole in the middle of his skull.

While Meg isn’t running the Mutt March, her mother is, so Meg is involved. Her yard is filled with dogs getting baths and checkups from the local vet, with dogs being trained to use a leash and getting fitted for costumes for the parade. But Meg also finds out that dog fighters from nearby counties may be trying to take dogs to train the fighters, so she’s also keeping an eye out for anyone she doesn’t know or who is acting suspiciously.

Meg does the research to create a list of missing people who may be the skeleton, going through microfilm and talking to old-timers in town. But when Iris, the woman who sold the farm to Rob and Delaney, goes missing, Meg adds another thing to her notebook-that-tells-her-when-to-breathe. Iris texted her to say she was okay, just needed some time to herself, but Meg is still worried. There are dangerous people in town, and she wants to make sure that Iris really is okay. But it’s not until Meg stumbles into an abandoned fallout shelter that she puts herself in the sights of the killers. Will she be able to put the pieces together in time, or will she find herself the next missing person?

For Duck’s Sake is book 37 in Donna Andrews’s popular Meg Langslow mystery series. I have been reading this series for years, and I love how Andrews uses modern storylines and Meg’s extensive family and friend circle to help face any challenge they come up against. I’m also a big animal lover, so I adored this story about the dog adoption parade and how carefully everyone cared for the dogs and vetted the families wanting to adopt.

I listened to For Duck’s Sake as an audio book, narrated to Bernadette Dunne, who has become to me the voice of Meg. I love listening to this series on audio, as it’s entertaining and soothing, and Dunne brings Meg’s voice to life perfectly. She has spent so much time with this family that she can easily keep the large cast of characters straight, which I appreciate. But she matches Meg’s level-headed intelligence with her snark and her Southern sensibilities, which makes for such an entertaining listen. And when you have a story that includes dogs in Ewok costumes, cross-stitched sayings with curse words, and magically multiplying ducks, then I am all-in.

Egalleys for For Duck’s Sake were provided by Minotaur Books and an early copy of the audio book was provided by Macmillan Audio, both through NetGalley, with many thanks, but the opinions are mine.