Stork Raving Mad – Donna Andrews

5/5 Stork Stars

On The Back:

Meg is eight and a half months pregnant with twins when Michael asks if she wouldn’t mind another houseguest. One of his doctoral students is directing his new translation of a play by a minor Spanish playwright, and the playwright has agreed to come to town for the production.

Senor Mendoza turns out to be a drinker, a smoker, and an inveterate partygoer. Before long, Meg’s kitchen is filled with the smells of Spanish food and the voices of all the wilder souls in both the drama and Spanish departments. Into this chaos arrive two prune-faced administrators, the dean of the English department and a man from the college president’s office, who say that the play must be canceled.

When the dean is found murdered, Meg’s house becomes a crime scene, and the only way to restore peace is to help Chief Burke solve the murders—while rescuing the student’s dissertation and Michael’s tenure—all before dashing off to the hospital to give birth to her twins!

My Thoughts:

At any given time you can find me working on two to three lengthy cozy-mystery series while trying out books in other (smaller) series or trying out books in new genres. The Meg Langslow series is one of the longer series I am currently working my way through, and boy is it a good series!

Donna Andrews has a talent for weaving humor into her mysteries. I don’t think there’s been a book in this series yet that hasn’t made me laugh out loud, or at least chuckle to myself. Meg has an enormous family that is both eccentric, quirky, and loud. Though that may be annoying to some people, Donna Andrews makes it work wonderfully.

The mysteries are always superbly plotted, though some mysteries tend to take a backseat to the family/secondary problems going on in the story. The characters are realistic and fun to read about.

I can honestly say this is a series that I love and will be reading for a long time yet. This is one of those series that every reader, not just cozy-mystery lovers, should pick up and give a try. There’s a 10 to 1 chance that you’ll love it!