ROCKIN' AROUND THE CHICKADEE (Meg Langslow #36) by Donna Andrews will be released on October 15, 2024, by Minotaur Books.
It’s Christmas in Caerphilly. Again. But, for once, Meg and Michael are not hosting the festivities. Meg’s sister-in-law, Delaney, is pregnant and on doctor-ordered bedrest. To help keep Delaney’s holiday as stress free as possible, the out-of-town extended family members have been foisted off onto other local relatives. The tranquil pre-Christmas season is destroyed when a dead body is found in Meg’s backyard. The victim is Godfrey Norton, and the day before he was murdered, he was causing issues (and making) enemies at the true crime conference that’s being hosted by Meg’s grandmother, Cordelia. The conference focuses on how to help people who have been wrongly convicted of crimes. Godfrey was adamantly against freeing convicted felons, and he made his opinions known to everyone at the conference before Cordelia banned him from the event. Because the victim was found in her backyard—and because she doesn’t want the killer to be someone she cares about—Meg gets involved with helping the local police solve the case.
ROCKIN' AROUND THE CHICKADEE is another Christmas-themed book in the Meg Langslow series—which is getting to be tedious. Having read all the other Christmas-themed books in the series, all the descriptions of the decorations around the house and throughout Caerphilly are just repetition of what I’ve read before. I also feel that the further along the series goes, the less character development there is for any of the main characters. That being said, the crime convention was intriguing. I wish there had been more focus on that. The victim, Godfrey Norton, is truly despicable. He has no redeeming qualities and the only reason to really care about who killed him is because you don’t want it to be a likable character. I thought the killer was obvious. Overall, ROCKIN' AROUND THE CHICKADEE is a decent mystery.
Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC.