Book review: The Penguin Who Knew Too Much

Title	The Penguin Who Knew Too Much (A Meg Langslow Mystery)
Author Andrews, Donna	Donna Andrews
Rating
Tags	fiction, mystery, humor, series, meg_langslow, donna_andrews
Your review	This is the 8th in Donna Andrew's humorous mystery series about Meg Langslow, a blacksmith and solver of mysteries. Andrews is often compared to Janet Evanovich since they both write mysteries with humor, but that's about the only commonality. I like both series, with maybe Andrews my preference by a hair. It is often said that truth is stranger than fiction, but I'm not always sure that is true... Andrews comes up with some pretty bizarre scenarios, matched by interesting titles that actually have some relationship to the plots of the books. In this book, Meg and her fiance Michael are finally set to move into the old house they've been renovating, so lots of Meg's relatives show up for the moving and the followup party. The festivities are somewhat postponed when Meg's father finds a body in the basement while digging a pool for the penguins. The penguins? one asks, and it turns out that the local zoo has asked people to help keep the animals while it recovers. Meanwhile word has gotten out through Meg's dad that the animals can be sent to Meg for keeping. Is the body in the basement the zoo's keeper? Andrew's plots are actually decent, not just an excuse for the humor, but the humor abounds, often laugh-out-loud funny...and that tends to earn me odd looks from my cats. This entry in the series is quite good. My favorite is still the fourth, Crouching Buzzard, Leaping Loon, but there hasn't been a dud in the whole series so far.
Other authors 1
Publication	St. Martin's Minotaur (2007), Hardcover, 272 pages
Publication date	2007
ISBN	0312329423 / 9780312329426