For many years I have been a fan of Meg Langslow’s crime novels, which are set in the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia. I particularly liked the titles: the bird jokes: “The hawk always flies twice” or “Murder of the most poultry”. “Between a flock and a hard place” the 35thisn’t too bad, but the book is a disappointment.
It’s too long and a little didactic. The Rex Stout/Nero Wolfe crime thriller Fer de Lance is 186 pages. Earl Stanley Gardner’s Perry Mason thriller The Case of the Bigamous Spouse is 166 pages. The Maltese Falcon, the granddaddy of them all, is 178 pages. This latest Andrews thriller is 296 pages and no body is discovered until page 131.
You may be wondering what happened before that. Well, a couple of pranksters lured 212 feral turkeys – not wild turkeys, we’re told – out of the woods into a truck and dumped them on a road in Caerphilly, Virginia at night. The turkeys are a pest. They start by destroying lawns and gardens, flowers and vegetables. They even rip up paving stones to get to the worms and bugs underneath, we’re told.
They are aggressive and even dangerous to humans, especially the large turkeys. Residents defend themselves with garden rakes and open umbrellas. We are told that turkeys are descended from velociraptors, so violence is natural.
The mayor and police are determined to catch the birds quickly, but no turkeys can be harmed in the process. The characters don’t seem to remember that we kill millions of turkeys in the US every November. In any case, these birds are to be treated gently. We are repeatedly reminded of animal rights. We are also given mini-lectures about invasive species, which have become an obsession for Andrews.
There’s even a lesson on gender/language. Whoever organized this “prank” obviously needed a lot of help. The police chief ponders, “‘How did he recruit her?’ ‘He or she,’ (Meg) corrected.” (Since Meg is now special assistant to the mayor, she’s in town to help him sort out these problems.)
At the same time, the TV show “Marvelous Mansions,” about home renovations, was being filmed in the middle of the block. The crew is surprisingly incompetent, and the show may have been faked: the house collapses. When the body is discovered on the floor of a garden shed, there are many suspects, including a mysterious guy with a dozen computers in his rented room and a horrendous electricity bill. Neighborhood feuds and marital disputes are revealed.
The turkeys are treated like Fabergé eggs and rounded up. All males are vasectomied. The reader can rest assured that they will spend their final years in a comfortable environment in the zoo and will be observed there for scientific purposes.
On the way, Meg and the police solve the murder.
