Between a flock and a hard place

Residents are up in arms about the home makeover show Marvelous Mansions causing continuous disruptions while filming an episode of the show featuring the Smetkamps' home in a formerly quiet Caerphilly, Virginia, neighborhood. Complicating matters, someone has released dozens of aggressive feral turkeys in the area, leading residents to arms themselves with umbrellas and rakes when they leave their homes. Meg Langslow, as special assistant to the mayor, is called in to mediate both issues. Shoddy workmanship leaves the home in danger of collapsing, and the disagreeable Imogen Smetkamp is found dead in the backyard shed. Next, the show's producer disappears, leaving his crew in the lurch. Meg investigates the murder and also tries to determine the identity of the turkey rustler, while trying to figure out what secrets her twin sons are hiding. Then, a second, much older, body is found by a cadaver Pomeranian. Fans will relish the familiar quirky Caerphilly residents, the turkey roundup, the animal information, and the responsible, hard-working Meg in this satisfying entry in the humorous, long-running cozy series.

A high-profile attempt to renovate an inoffensive house in Caerphilly, Virginia, ends up making things much, much worse. It's raining turkeys on Bland Street. After one of them lands on Meg Langslow's windshield, she realizes that the birds, which normally keep themselves away from human citizens, have been driven there by one or more of those very citizens. Is it mischievous friends of Meg's twins, Josh and Jamie? Or someone with a grudge against Reg and Imogen Smetkamp, relative newcomers to Bland Street who've won the opportunity to have the house that once belonged to Charles Jasper remodeled by producer Jared Blomqvist and the crew of Marvelous Mansions, his reality TV show? The Smetkamps certainly don't need any more aggravation. Jared and his minions, who clearly don't have a clue about the job they've taken on, have already knocked down so many bearing walls that it's only a matter of time before the house collapses. But that's still enough time for the gang of turkey wranglers assembled by Meg--acting in her capacity as Mayor Randall Shiffley's executive assistant for special projects--to discover Imogen's body stabbed to death in her backyard shed. An amateur might think she was attacked by one of those turkeys, but Meg, a veteran of 34 raucous adventures, is no amateur. Despite having to deal with friends and relations who seem oblivious to the threat of a murderer among them, presumably because they've heard this song so many times before, she quickly flushes out not only the murderer, whose motive is both logical and unexpected, but a serious thief roosting in close quarters. Fans of this long-running, lackadaisical series will know just what to expect, and they'll get it in spades. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.