Duck the Halls (Meg Langslow Mystery, 16)
Donna Andrews, 2013
St. Martin's Press
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250046710
Summary
A few nights before Christmas, Meg Langslow is awakened when volunteer fireman Michael is called to the Baptist church.
Someone had rigged a cage full of skunks in the choir loft.
Next morning, the congregation of the Catholic church arrives to find it filled with several hundred ducks. Some serious holiday pranksters are on the loose, and Meg is determined to find them.
Then a fire breaks out at Trinity Episcopal, and the elderly vestryman is found dead. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—October 25, 1952
• Where—Yorktown, Virginia, USA
• Education—B.A., University of Virginia
• Awards—3 Agatha Awards (more below)
• Currently—lives in Reston, Virginia
Donna Andrews is an American mystery fiction writer of two award-winning amateur sleuth series. Her first book, Murder with Peacocks (1999), introduced Meg Langslow, a blacksmith from Yorktown, Virginia. The debut won the St. Martin's Minotaur Best First Traditional Mystery contest, as well as awards for best first novel from the … Agatha, Anthony, Barry, and Romantic Times Reviewers' Choice Awards. It also won the Lefty Award for funniest mystery of 1999.
In 2002, she published You've Got Murder, the first novel in the Turing Hopper series featuring an Artificial Intelligence (AI) personality who becomes sentient. That mystery also won the Agatha Award for best mystery of the year.
Donna Andrews was born in Yorktown, Virginia (the setting of her Meg Langslow series), studied English and drama at the University of Virginia, and now lives and works in Reston, Virginia.
Awards
1999 - Agatha Award: Best First Novel (Murder with Peacocks)
2000 - Anthony Award: Best First Novel (Peacocks)
2000 - Barry Award: Best First Novel (Peacocks)
2000 - Lefty Award (Peacocks)
1999 - Romantic Times Reviewers' Choice: Best First Mystery (Peacocks)
2002 - Agatha Award: Best Novel (You've Got Murder)
2003 - Toby Bromberg Award: Most Humorous Mystery (Crouching Buzzard, Leaping Loon)
2005 - Lefty Award (We'll Always Have Parrots)
2007 - Agatha Award: Best Short Story ("A Rat's Tour," Ellery Queen Mystery, October 2007)
2009 - Toby Bromberg Award: Most Humorous Mystery
2012 - Lefty Award (The Real Macaw)
(From Wikipedia. Retrieved 12/9/2017.)
Book Reviews
Duck the Halls offers a wealth of yuletide yuks amid the Christmas carnage, and Andrews' faithful fans will flock to greet the birth of her latest funfest.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
The stakes rise when another prank takes a life at Trinity. Andrews leavens the action with her trademark humor, including dueling Christmas dinners and an extravagant — and extravagantly funny — live nativity scene.
Publishers Weekly
A fun and uncomplicated cozy mystery that will make you long to visit small-town Virginia for the Christmas holidays.
Library Journal
Meg, as well as her quirky extended family, makes this humorous cozy a holiday treat.
Booklist
Given her vast experience as an amateur sleuth.… Not many felonies, clues or deductions, and rather too many pranks…. There's charm enough here to get by with Meg's many fans, but newcomers will want to open other gifts in this waggish series first.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
The below questions were graciously submitted to LitLovers by Shelley Holley, M.L.S of the Southington (Conn.) Library. Thank you, Shelley!
1. What did you think of the book? Like or Dislike?
2. What do you think of Meg’s relationship with her grandfather?
3. What did you think about the competition regarding the Christmas meals between the
mothers-in-law?
4. Did you find Meg’s mother a bit manipulative?
5. Did you find it funny that she knew almost everyone in the town?
6. Do you think Meg and Michael are a good team or is he too easy going with her helping
all the churches?
7. If you were making a movie of this book, who would you cast?
8. Would you read another book by this author?
9. Did this book remind you of other books?
10. Did you like the theme?
(Questions by Shelley Holley of the Southington, Conn., Library. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution to Shelley and LitLovers. Thanks.)