I received this book for free from my own shelves in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Source: my own shelves
Stork Raving Mad
by
Donna Andrews
amateur sleuth, cozy mystery in a Kindle edition that was published by Minotaur Books on July 6, 2010 and has 318 pages.
Explore it on Goodreads or Amazon
Other books by this author which I have reviewed include The Real Macaw, Some Like It Hawk, The Hen of the Baskervilles, Duck the Halls, The Good, the Bad, and the Emus, Lord of the Wings, The Nightingale Before Christmas, Die Like an Eagle, Gone Gull, How the Finch Stole Christmas!, Toucan Keep a Secret, Lark! The Herald Angels Sing, The Falcon Always Wings Twice, The Gift of the Magpie, The Twelve Jays of Christmas, Murder with Peacocks, Murder with Puffins, Revenge of the Wrought Iron Flamingos, Crouching Buzzard, Leaping Loon, We’ll Always Have Parrots, Owls Well That Ends Well, Terns of Endearment, Between a Flock and a Hard Place, No Nest for the Wicket, The Penguin Who Knew Too Much, Cockatiels at Seven, Six Geese A-Slaying, Owl Be Home for Christmas, Murder Most Fowl
Twelfth in the Meg Langslow cozy mystery series and revolving around Meg, a blacksmith with a nose for sleuthing. The focus is on the malicious drama department and the heating crisis at the college.
Stork Raving Mad was nominated in 2011 for the Lefty Award and in 2010 for the Agatha Award for Best Novel.
My Take
Per usual, lol, Meg and Michael have a troupe camping out in the house. This time the college is having trouble fixing its heating system.
A minor series arc is the hatred the English department has with the drama people that falls within their realm. Part of their disdain comes through their calling Michael a “professor”. Michael’s tenure is another arc. Yet another is Mother’s obsession with decorating. She does have good taste, but doesn’t always consider what Meg or Michael would like.
Oooh, a new bit of drama is Dr Blake’s desire to donate a building to the college.
That Dr Wright. Omigod. She is hideous. She deserves to be tarred and feathered and shot in the stomach. She is so wicked! And her reasons for it come out at the end. Bitch.
That sneaky Kathy. I love her, lol. A nice contrast to that Wright.
Poor Meg — Andrews uses first person protagonist point-of-view from Meg’s perspective, so we learn all about the ills and issues of being pregnant. And there are a’many.
Ya know, ya gotta love a town that comes together like Caerphilly. It made me laugh how the students are spread throughout town during the heating crisis.
It’s one heckuva tricky murder with plenty of suspects, what with so many drama students at the Langslow-Waterson’s. There’s no lack of other dramas what with Sammy’s puppy, the contentious English department making life so difficult for its drama department — and its demanding attitude at the Langslow-Waterson’s, oy!
The real interest is in the multitude of characters and their interactions. Already I’m wanting to re-read Stork Raving Mad even though it’s been less than a month. It’s the humor as well as the tension and betrayals that fascinate me.
The Story
Dr Wright is determined to wreak havoc on the drama students and strikes out with her late denial of Ramon’s dissertation. Two years late. Now she’s cancelling the show he’s been working on.
To add to the drama is administrative services hasn’t been able to get the heating plant problem solved, all due to the college not paying the half million dollars they owe Shiffley Constructions.
It’s forced students to be spread out throughout the community while that’s sorted.
The Characters
The very organized Meg Langslow with her book-that-tells-me-what-to-do is eight-and-a-half months pregnant and has a dreadful fish allergy and a new one to garlic. Dr Michael Langslow, a drama professor at the college, is her husband. Spike is their eight-and-a-half pound Small Evil One. Dad is Dr Langslow with a fascination for mystery and death. Mother is always obeyed and is the ultimate expert in class. Mrs Fenniman is her best friend.
Rose Noire is a cousin with an interest in herbs. Rob Langslow is Meg’s brother. Mutant Wizards is the gaming company he started up. Danny Oh is a student intern at Mutant Wizards and has been living in the basement for several weeks. Josh is the leader of the interns and a regular employee. Data Wizards is a new corporate subsidiary. Grandfather is Dr Montgomery Blake, an over-ninety environmentalist and animal welfare activist who owns the Caerphilly Zoo. The Hollingsworths are from Mother’s side of the family and include Cousin Horace Hollingsworth, a crime-scene investigator with the Yorktown sheriff’s department. Great-aunt Flo loves to tell gruesome tales. Great-aunt Louella is famous for her pickle recipe. Eat at your own risk!
Caerphilly, Virginia, is . . .
. . . the town where the Langslow-Waterston’s live on their farm and the base for Caerphilly College. Randall Shiffley is the owner of the Shiffley Construction Company which is always available. Hobart is one of Randall’s cousins.
The disorganized Ramon Soto is one of Michael’s grad students. In the drama department. (Angelica Soto sent him a letter.) The impetuous Ignacio Mendoza is a notable Spanish dramatist who loves to cook. Other drama students, camping out at the Langslow-Waterston’s, include Bronwyn Jones and Alice.
The demanding Dr Jean Wright is with the English department and on Michael’s tenure committee — under which auspices falls the drama department while Dr Enrique Blanco is with administrative services and one of the president’s pet bureaucrats. The Face is the brainless president of the college.
Drs Abe Sass and Art Rudmann are tenured and senior professors with the drama department. Kathy Borgstrom is Sass’s secretary and coordinates the drama curriculum and its students. The Caerphilly Philanthropic Foundation is affiliated with the college and handles donations.
Henry Burke is the chief of police. Scout is his adopted hound. Sammy Wendell (Hawkeye is Sammy’s dog) is one of his deputies. Burke has twenty-seven criminal justice majors living in the jail wing.
Rivak has taken in the library science department. The Caerphilly Inn is a five-star hotel, which has taken in students. Dr Waldron is Meg’s obstetrician. Tawaret is the Egyptian goddess who protects women during pregnancy and childbirth.
The Cover and Title
The cover is a deep purplish blue with an info blurb in white at the top. The author’s name is below this in white with the last name jumbled up. An epigraph is in a pale orange below that and off-center. Below this is the cover’s graphic of a white stork with black in its wings and tail carrying a baby in a white bindle. It’s those legs and bill on the stork that lend the orange to the title’s gradient that runs from white to orange. The series info is white and off to the side of “mad”. Below this, at the very bottom, is a testimonial in white.
The title encompasses both Meg’s condition and the bad guys in Stork Raving Mad.
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