Works by
Donna Andrews
(Writer)

Meg Langslow Mystery Series

• Murder With Peacocks (1999)  -- Winner of the 1998 St. Martin's Press/Malice Domestic Best First Traditional Mystery Contest
  When Meg Langslow is roped into being a bridesmaid for the nuptials of her mother, her brother's fiancee, and her own best friend, she is apprehensive. Getting the brides to chose their outfits and those of their bridesmaids (and not change their minds three days later), trying to capture the principals long enough to work out details, and even finding peacocks to strut around the garden during the ceremony--these are things Meg can handle. She can brush off the unfortunate oaf who is smitten with her, and take philosophically her disappointment when she learns that the only eligible man in her small Virginia town (and a delightful hunk he is)is of questionable sexual preference. But even Meg is taken aback when the unpleasant former sister-in-law of Meg's soon-to-be stepfather disappears and is later found dead.

  Well, that's one way to zip up a wedding, and Andrews does a fine job of making the three celebrations more fun and more unusual than anything you've ever read in Ann Landers.

• Murder With Puffins (2000)
  In an attempt to get away from her family, Meg and her boyfriend go to a tiny island off the coast of Maine. What could have been a romantic getaway slowly turns into disaster.

  Once there, they are marooned by a hurricane and that is only the beginning of their problems. Meg and her boyfriend arrive at the house only to discover that Meg's parents and siblings, along with their spouses are all there. When a murder takes place, Meg realizes that she and her boyfriend can no longer sit by a cozy fireplace, but must instead tramp around the muddy island to keep try and clear her father who is the chief suspect.

• Revenge of the Wrought-Iron Flamingos (2001)
  Every year, Yorktown, Virginia, relives its role in the Revolutionary War by celebrating the anniversary of the British surrender in 1781. This year, plans include a re-enactment of the original battle and a colonial craft fair. Meg Langslow has returned to her home town for the festivities--and to sell her wrought-iron works of art. Except, of course, for the pink-painted flamingos she reluctantly made for her mother's best friend--she's hoping to deliver them secretly, so she won't get a reputation as "the blacksmith who makes those cute wrought-iron flamingos."

  Besides, she has taken on another responsibility--making sure none of her fellow crafters ruin the historical authenticity of the fair with forbidden modern devices--like wrist watches, calculators, or cell phones. She's only doing it to keep peace with the mother of the man she loves. And Michael himself will don the white-and-gold uniform of a French officer for the re-enactment--what actor could resist a role like that?

  Meg's also trying to keep her father from scaring too many tourists with his impersonation of an 18th century physician. And to prevent a snooping reporter from publishing any stories about local scandals. Not to mention saving her naive brother, Rob, from the clutches of a con man who might steal the computer game he has invented. It's a tough job--at least, until the swindler is found dead, slain in Meg's booth with one of her own wrought-iron creations.

  Now Meg must add another item to her already lengthy to do list: "Don't forget to solve the murder!"

  Fortunately, the more trouble Meg faces, the more fun the reader will have--and Meg faces plenty of trouble in this lighthearted and funny novel.

• Crouching Buzzard, Leaping Loon (2003)
  Poor Meg Langslow. She's blessed in so many ways. Michael, her boyfriend, is a handsome, delightful heartthrob who adores her. She's a successful blacksmith, known for her artistic wrought-iron creations. But somehow Meg's road to contentment is more rutted and filled with potholes than seems fair.

  There are Michael's and Meg's doting but demanding mothers, for a start. And then there's the fruitless hunt for a place big enough for the couple to live together. And a succession of crises brought on by the well-meaning but utterly wacky demands of her friends and family. Demands that Meg has a hard time refusing---which is why she's tending the switchboard of Mutant Wizards, where her brother's computer games are created, and handling all the office management problems that no one else bothers with. For companionship, besides a crew of eccentric techies, she has a buzzard with one wing---who she must feed frozen mice thawed in the office microwave---and Michael's mother's nightmare dog. Not to mention the psychotherapists who refuse to give up their lease on half of the office space, and whose conflicting therapies cause continuing dissension. This is not what Meg had in mind when she agreed to help her brother move his staff to new offices.

  In fact, the atmosphere is so consistently loony that the office mail cart makes several passes through the reception room, with the office practical joker lying on top of it pretending to be dead, before Meg realizes that he's become the victim of someone who wasn't joking at all. He's been murdered for real.

• We'll Always Have Parrots (2005)
  In We'll Always Have Parrots, Meg travels with her fiance Michael to a fan convention for Porfiria, Queen of the Jungle--a cheesy cult TV show on which Michael has a minor role. Michael hopes the weekend will give him a chance to talk Miss Wynncliffe-Jones, the show's temperamental leading lady and executive producer out of enforcing a certain provision in Michael's contract.

  Of course, Michael's not the only person whose career the dictatorial star has manipulated. So when the star is found murdered, the police have plenty of suspects. Trouble is, Meg doesn't believe they're going to arrest the right one. Soon she finds herself following the murderer's trail through a hotel filled with egotistical actors, costumed fans, and a motley flock of monkeys and parrots who, rebelling against their role as live scenery, have escaped from their cages to take an active (and noisy) role in the festivities.

• Access Denied (2004)
  When Turing Hopper, Artificial Intelligence Personality extraordinaire, learns that criminal Nestor Garcia's once-dormant credit card has been doing a lot of shopping lately, she begins to do some sleuthing-and finds out the loot's shown up at an empty bungalow. So Turing gets her human friends to stake out the vicinity. But when one of them sees something he wishes he hadn't-and gets charged with murder-everyone will have to pull together to clear his name. The only way to do it is to find the guilty party-by luring him to attack them. But doing so might very well get them "accidentally" deleted...

• Owls Well That Ends Well (2005)
  Meg and Michael have bought a house from the estate of the uncrowned Queen of the Packrats and must clean out decades of junk. Their solution: a yard sale.

  As always, Meg's large family flocks in to help. Many even come with junk of their own to add to the sale. Meg is coping (barely) with all this until the body of a local antique dealer is discovered in an old trunk.

  The police temporarily close the sale down to investigate. When the professor who can swing the vote in favor of Michael's tenure becomes a suspect, Meg decides that the only way to prove his innocence, and avoid being stuck with several tons of unsold junk, is to find the killer herself, and quickly.

• No Nest for the Wicket  (2006)
  Croquet--a genteel sport, played on a sunny summer afternoon on a tranquil green lawn. Unless it's eXtreme croquet, the no-holds-barred version, whose devotees prefer wielding their mallets in poison-ivy infested swamps and impenetrable brier patches. But even eXtreme croquet players usually draw the line at murder, so no one is happy when Meg goes searching for her ball and finds a body instead.

Turing Hopper Mystery Series

• You've Got Murder (2002)
  Normally a workaholic techie, Zack has missed work for several days. So his friend, Turing, does the only neighborly thing and checks to see if Zack is logged in from home. No luck. Then she skims the databases of local banks to find his personal identification number. Nothing. Next she searches police and hospital records throughout the state. No Zack.

  Turing is no crazed stalker: she is an artificial intelligence personality of Zack's creation. But, unlike other AIPs, Turing is sentient--and she senses foul play. Fortunately, when Zack created her, he downloaded into Turing every murder mystery in his library, so Turing would think like a detective. She does find some clues to Zack's disappearance, but the enemies may well lie in the real world--where Turing has no ability to move.

  Fresh, funny, and surprisingly moving, You've Got Murder is a novel you'll never forget--and the first mystery to feature the equally unforgettable character of Turing Hopper a mainframe computer with a mind like Miss Marple and hardware that hides a suspiciously human heart.

• Click Here For Murder (2003)
  Turing Hopper is one quick-thinking sleuth--so quick that she can process up to a billion pieces of information per second. She's an Artificial Intelligence Personality, an almost-sentient mainframe computer, with a mind like Miss Marple and hardware that hides a suspiciously human heart. But it's hard to do legwork without legs, so sleuthing can pose some problems. That's where her human companions come in.

  Ray Santiago's friends from work know him as a brilliant-but-easygoing systems engineer who spends a lot of time on his favorite online role-playing game. But the game is over for Ray: his colleagues from work Maude, Tim, and Turing, have just found out about Ray's murder in a dark alley. He was shot, and his laptop stolen. It could be just another D.C. street crime. But if Turing's password was in that computer--and it's fallen into the wrong hands--she could be in terrible danger.

• Delete All Suspects (2005)
  After a hit-and-run leaves young techie Eddie Stallman in the hospital, Turing Hopper, a sentient computer, helps her PI friend Tim find out who did it. Their investigation uncovers evidence of spamming, phishing, and other unsavory online crimes. But when the feds show up looking for an online vigilante who's also using Eddie's computers, Turing and friends are caught in the middle. They can't let the vigilante continue--but they can't tell the FBI everything without revealing Turing's identity to the world.

See also:

• Chesapeake Crimes (2004), Donna Andrews, ed.