I received this book for free from in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Crouching Buzzard, Leaping Loon
by
Donna Andrews
amateur sleuth, cozy mystery in a Kindle edition that was published by Minotaur Books on February 7, 2006 and has 324 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, We’ll Always Have Parrots, Owls Well That Ends Well, Terns of Endearment
Fourth in the Meg Langslow cozy mystery series revolving around a blacksmith who is an amateur sleuth. The focus is on the mystery at Mutant Wizards.
My Take
Okay, the start was different with an injured Meg answering phones for the building that includes therapists and Mutant Wizards.
It’s the Mutant Wizards start that is fully supported by the extended Hollingsworth family, and Michael’s contacts have helped. And it’s one of the reasons I adore the Meg Langslow series — she has the most supportive and involved family! Including the many Hollingsworth lawyers who come in so handy.
Andrews uses first person protagonist point-of-view from Meg’s perspective, so we learn all about that “kata” Meg teaches Rob. Crouching Buzzard is a crack-up. Purse fu?
Caerphilly’s tight housing market is a recurring theme in the series. It also explains that odd blend of computer programmers and therapists. Therapists who don’t have any boundaries. Therapists with . . . secrets. Especially the hypocritical, married Valkyrie who exclaims against romance when she’s life-partnered with a closet romantic.
Oh, lol, I adored those paragraphs about Spike and the Affirmation Bear!
Meg is renowned for her organizing ability, and Rob takes excellent advantage of her “hobby”. He also takes advantage of her diplomacy. Nor is Meg visually dead, for she does appreciate Jack “the Hunk”, a.k.a. “the Sane One”.
The company does sound like fun, I mean, Mutant Wizards? It cracks me up that the company counsel doesn’t like the name. I do like that animals are welcomed.
It’s that interaction between the programmers and the police that results in Meg admiring the older techies’ “stubborn, independent iconoclasts with a sneaking fondness for anarchy, entropy, and coloring way outside the lines”.
As for the investigation of those porn sites . . . it was too funny that the investigators prefer the historical romance movies where the heroine taking off a glove was more moving that the pictures.
Ya can’t help liking the klutzy Rob. He may be feckless and immature with his “odd” enjoyments, yet he’s also a good egg who mostly understands his area of expertise. What a job, lol! Nor does he seem to have an ego. Hmmm, Rob admits to there being a bunch of pictures of him in the nude. I can’t wait until Chief Burke realizes that Rob is not a martial arts expert, lol.
“Everyone always talks about how great Rob is at thinking outside the box . . . I don’t suppose they realize that he hasn’t the foggiest idea where the box is.”
I do have to wonder about all the game variations they’ve come up with. They all seem to be pretty much the same, simply focusing on different careers. I do like where the programmers were going with Mutant Vets From Hell as a teaching tool, lol.
I do wish Andrews would decide on one version of Hollingworth/Hollingsworth.
I never did understand the “need” for people to eulogize someone who dies. If they were unlikable in life, what makes them likable in death?
Crouching Buzzard, Leaping Loon is a combination of characters and actions with a fun blend of both with a sweet ending that’ll make you grin.
The Story
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.
The Characters
Meg Langslow, a blacksmith, a.k.a. Judge Hammer, can’t resist a murder. Professor Michael Waterston is employed at Caerphilly College in Caerphilly, teaching drama. On his summer breaks, he acts in a cheesy series as Mephisto the sorcerer, and that’s what he’s doing now, acting in LA. Spike is his mother’s eight-pound Small Evil One — a canine shaped demon. The Cave is Michael’s tiny basement apartment — it’s hard having a relationship when they live two hours apart.
Dad, Dr James Langslow, a semi-retired general practitioner, loves talking about medicine and reading mysteries. He’s also having a ball discussing details for a new game: “Doctors From Hell”. Mother, Margaret Hollingsworth Langslow, is quite the classy lady with a penchant for decorating. She has some grand ideas for Michael’s tiny apartment *more laughter*. Mother is also chairman of the board. Aunt Cecily.
Dahlia Waterston is Michael’s mother and owns half of Be-Stitched in Yorktown (Murder with Peacocks, 1, and Revenge of the Wrought Iron Flamingos, 3).
Caerphilly
Chief Burke is the African-American chief of police and sheriff of the county. Officers include Danny and Sammy. The College Diner is a 24/7 diner. Clarence Rutledge, a.k.a. Doc, is a scruffy looking motorcyclist who’s a vegetarian holistic veterinarian, who plans to specialize in behavioral therapy — look out, Spike! He used to be an animal-rights militant. Not Spike. Dr Rutledge.
Mutant Wizards is . . .
. . . Rob Langslow‘s, Meg’s younger brother, new computer gaming company with “Lawyers From Hell”, a role-playing game, as the kick-off. Programmers include Ted Corrigan; the over-eager Frankie, a.k.a. the Luddite, who is a programming warlock; Roger is the sys admin; Jack Ransom is one of the team leaders with a black belt in karate and jujitsu; Luis is a senior software guru; Keisha, who is one of the few women and a cyber goddess; and, Rico, a graduate from the Rhode Island School of Design, is one of the graphic designers. Darlene is the one-person Personnel department. Elizabeth “Liz” Mitchell is the company’s lawyer, a cutthroat negotiator. Muriel is one of a long line of reluctant temp receptionists.
George is the one-winged office buzzard. Katy, a.k.a. Cathleen Ni Houihan, is a big Irish wolfhound who belongs to Rico. Keisha owns the two St Bernards. There’re also a collie, a German shepherd, a Norwegian elkhound, and a keeshond.
The fired Eugene Mason is a Unix Crusader and gun enthusiast with a penchant for making threatening phone calls.
The six therapists who . . .
. . . share the building and its receptionist include Dr Brown with her new invention, the Affirmation Bear; she does anger management — despite her feud with an assertiveness therapist. I’m not even going to spoil all the pranks the programmers play with the bears, lol. Dr Lorelei Gruber also has a radio show, Lorelei Listens. She’s going national in September. Seems she also has credibility problems. Randall is one of Lorelei’s patients. Dr Glass is Lorelei’s life partner. Another therapist operates Eat Your Way Skinny while another is the size acceptance guru.
Anna Floyd, a.k.a. Rosenkavalier, is a romance writer. The invading woman is a spy, a.k.a. Mata Hari, (and the vice-president) who works for The Four Gamers of the Apocalypse, Mutant Wizards’ biggest and most hated competitor. Savage and Associates are divorce attorneys. The Whispering Pines Cabins had been a hot-sheets motel; now it’s home for many of the programmers. It’s that danged housing shortage! Except for Ted, who snagged a house that had been owned by Mrs Edwina Sprocket.
The blackmail victims include the Iron Maiden, the Valkyrie, Professor Higgins, the Ninja, and the Robin Hood Hacker.
The TV series
Walker, an actor buddy of Michael’s, explains virtual dating.
The Cover and Title
The cover’s background is a watery blue with the brown, hunching buzzard perched atop a floating computer monitor and a black-and-white loon in the back leaping for joy. At the very top is a purple info blurb with the author’s name below it in an embossed white with black outlining. Below the brown buzzard with the red head is an orange rectangle outlined in gold and black with the title and series info in either a pale gold or white.
The title is too apt, for there is the real buzzard and all those leaping loons in the parking lot. If you need a laugh, read Crouching Buzzard, Leaping Loon.
