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    Crouching Buzzard, Leaping Loon: Meg Langslow, Book 4
    Unavailable
    Crouching Buzzard, Leaping Loon: Meg Langslow, Book 4
    Unavailable
    Crouching Buzzard, Leaping Loon: Meg Langslow, Book 4
    Audiobook8 hours

    Crouching Buzzard, Leaping Loon: Meg Langslow, Book 4

    Written by Donna Andrews

    Narrated by Bernadette Dunne

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    The unflappable ornamental blacksmith-turned-detective Meg Langslow returns in this latest bird mystery by award-winning author Donna Andrews. Aficionados of Murder with Peacocks and Revenge of the Wrought-Iron Flamingos will revel in Andrews's trademark dry humor, offbeat characters, and disastrous events unfolding at another classic American setting. And we get to peek in on fresh developments in Meg's romance with her college professor beau Michael, her intrepid partner in detection. Despite the fact that detectives always seem to attract as many murders as they solve, Andrews's buzzards and loons make for delightful and cozy reading-and a new take on the meaning of bird watcher. Put on your deerstalker cap, get out your magnifying glass, and pull up an overstuffed chair.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateSep 6, 2002
    ISBN9781415912225
    Unavailable
    Crouching Buzzard, Leaping Loon: Meg Langslow, Book 4
    Author

    Donna Andrews

    DONNA ANDREWS has won the Agatha, Anthony, and Barry Awards, an RT Book Reviews Award for best first novel, and four Lefty and two Toby Bromberg Awards for funniest mystery. She is a member of the Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, and Novelists, Inc. Andrews lives in Reston, Virginia. She has written over 30 books in the Meg Langslow mystery series.

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    Reviews for Crouching Buzzard, Leaping Loon

    4/5

    220 ratings20 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Another fun read about the lady blacksmith with the loony family sleuthing away. She's staying in the college town where the boyfriend has a flat known as The Cave while he's in California on a temporary job and her brother has a burgeoning gaming software company because she smashed her hand and the brother asked for help with the office part and to investigate a hunch that something hinky is going on. The title refers to a sort of imaginary karate stance based on the rescued injured buzzard who resides in the office. There are lots of loony characters and situations that simply have to be read to enjoy. Which I certainly did!Bernadette Dunne did a fine job as narrator.
    • 4/5
      The Langslow series tends toward slap dash humor, often to the point of the bizarre. Crouching Buzzard is zany and fun and definitely my favorite.Meg's brother, Rob, created a game called 'Lawyers from Hell' which has become an incredible hit among computer gamers. His company, Mutant Wizards, seems to have an in-house problem which he has set Meg to uncover. When murder is added to the mix, she's off and running.
    • 5/5
      This is my all-time favorite Donna Andrews book! If you've ever worked in an IT department and love a funny mystery, this is one to re-read!
    • 4/5
      This is the second Donna Andrews "Meg Langslow" mystery I have read. This is an easy read, moves quickly, the characters are likeable, the situations mostly believable. I will definitely read more of this series any time I want some light fiction.
    • 4/5
      Another delightful Meg Langslow mystery. An unfortunate accident with a hammer inspires Meg's brother Ron to enlist her help in figuring out who is sneaking about at his gaming company, Mutant Wizards. After the murder of one of the programmers Meg finds herself tripping over geeks, gamers, and therapists as she tries to keep first one innocent and then another out of jail. The personalities of the programmers match many of the professional geeks I know, which once again added another level to my enjoyment. On to the next!
    • 3/5
      I had never read any of this series before...but hey...it had a buzzard, also known as a vulture, on the cover and I needed something on the cover that started with the letter "V"... that's right...for a challenge. I thought it might be funny...it's been my experience after 28 years in a zoo that vultures were often funny creatures...but unfortunately it was just ridiculous and Meg was just plain annoying. I'm more than likely a minority here but I think I'll skip any more of these.
    • 4/5
      Meg and Michael are hunting for a house, Rob and his programming team are having Meg serve as office help until they can find someone permanently. When one of the programmers is found dead, Meg is on the case along with her father. There is an amazing number of suspects including Rob and all his team, a disgruntled employee, and the other tenants of the building where Mutant Wizards is housed. Michael is in California so Meg is working pretty much alone. There are a couple great scenes involving "affirmation bears" that talk, and then fall into the hands of the programmers. I'm still really enjoying this series and will keep reading.
    • 4/5
      Meg has injured her hand and so she has to put her ironworks on hold but that doesn't mean that she can't help her brother find out what's not right at the office of Mutant Wizards, the software company that Rob founded with Lawyers from Hell.Rob is a bit quirky and so he installed a robotic mail cart in the office. Practical Joker Ted loves to ride the cart but one of his jokes goes wrong and he appears at Meg's desk dead. Just as the route for the mail cart winds throughout the office so does Meg's investigation into the murder. Michael, her boyfriend, is out of town filming a TV series, but he still manages to play a part over the phone. All in all the mystery was satisfying but nothing to garner any awards. Not the best of the series but not bad.
    • 2/5
      Meg helps out at her brother's software company, and winds up (of course!) in the middle of a murder mystery. There are suspects a-plenty too keep things interesting, as well as a menagerie of critters (furry and winged) who get into the act.The humor often borders on slapstick. At times, this book had me laughing out loud. Some of the humor, however, left me offended. There was one character whose personality traits seemed very much those of someone with Asperger's Syndrome (quite common among those in the computer industry), and those traits (in terms of body language, social awkwardness, etc.) were ridiculed and treated with absolutely no understanding -- and, as the plot developed, some misunderstandings that are not helpful for those on the autism spectrum were perpetuated. This disappointed me greatly. I've enjoyed this series up until now -- and I enjoyed this book except for this fact. I realize that this is a book to not be taken too seriously -- the humor is generally of the madcap variety, and the climactic scene is totally over-the-top. I think Ms. Andrews is basically a good writer, but I can't enjoy someone making fun of symptoms of a developmental disability. I'm actually re-evaluating whether to read the rest of this series.
    • 4/5
      When Meg Langslow hurts her hand and is unable to work as a blacksmith, she agrees to work at her brother Rob's computer game company Mutant Wizards. Rob feels that something isn't right at the company and asks Meg to look around while she is working there. Before long, Meg has a real problem on her hands when one of the workers is murdered. There are plenty of suspects: a disgruntled ex-employee; a biker who has been lurking around the place; and a fan who keeps sneaking in to try and get a copy of the newest game from Mutant Wizards. Plus, Ted was blackmailing several of his coworkers. But the police suspect Rob is the killer and Meg must clear her brother while trying to find the real murderer. "Crouching Buzzard, Leaping Loon" is a screwball comedy in book form. Nothing is meant to be taken seriously - how many offices do you know that have a buzzard as an office pet? There are laughs galore and the Affirmation Bears are extremely funny. The murder is nicely plotted and it will be fun for readers to try to figure out who was who in the code names that Ted, the murder victim, had for the people he was blackmailing. And who the murderer is will come as a surprise. The book isn't without flaws; for one thing, it's a bit tiring to have the police suspect Rob is a murderer in yet another book. And for some reason Meg never mentions the fact that she has solved murders in the past. Still, the real reason to read Donna Andrews's books is for the humor and there's plenty of that throughout the book. The book is worth reading just for the end where the murderer is revealed. It's way over the top, highly improbable, and the funniest thing I've read in a long time. "Crouching Buzzard, Leaping Loon" is a nice, humorous cozy mystery.
    • 4/5
      A very good installment in the series. A lot of humor and a very surprising perpetrator. The characters are delightful.
    • 5/5
      Although this book certainly can stand on its own, you should really start this series at the beginning, with Murder With Peacocks. This book is definitely the laugh-out-loud funniest of the series thus far. (The weakest--in my opinion--is the second book, Murder with Puffins.) [return][return]Some people will find this book a tad on the "too outrageous" side. The stereotypical programmers and psychiatrists are funny because they're *meant* to be funny; if you are expecting a serious character study, you won't find it here. Meg remains the only finely-drawn individual, but that's okay because the rest of the characters are just that: characters. [return][return]To get a sense of what happens in this book and the general level of bizarre humor, here's the basic hook: Meg takes a job at her brother's software company. They have an electronic mail cart that one of the office jokers like to ride around on playing dead. Because of this ghoulish habit, it takes a while for anyone to realize that he really *is* dead when the mail cart makes its final run. [return][return]And the "affirmation bear"...that alone is worth the price of admission.
    • 4/5
      A fun crime series with a likeable blacksmith protagonist with an eccentric family. This one is set in Meg's brother's computer game company (he came up with Lawyers from Hell) and is lots of geeky fun. There are also birds involved, as always in this series.
    • 4/5
      The was the most entertaining of the flurry of cozy mysteries I've read recently. I even snickered a few times. There were a few of the inevitable errors made by a non-IT professional when describing work in an IT company, but nothing bad enough to be really annoying. I'll be looking out for the other books in this series.
    • 5/5
      Although this book certainly can stand on its own, you should really start this series at the beginning, with Murder With Peacocks. This book is definitely the laugh-out-loud funniest of the series thus far. (The weakest--in my opinion--is the second book, Murder with Puffins.) Some people will find this book a tad on the "too outrageous" side. The stereotypical programmers and psychiatrists are funny because they're *meant* to be funny; if you are expecting a serious character study, you won't find it here. Meg remains the only finely-drawn individual, but that's okay because the rest of the characters are just that: characters. To get a sense of what happens in this book and the general level of bizarre humor, here's the basic hook: Meg takes a job at her brother's software company. They have an electronic mail cart that one of the office jokers like to ride around on playing dead. Because of this ghoulish habit, it takes a while for anyone to realize that he really *is* dead when the mail cart makes its final run. And the "affirmation bear"...that alone is worth the price of admission.
    • 5/5
      meg goes to work at her brother's software company, Mutant Wizards, to find any problems and someone ends up dead.Love this series, one of my favorites!
    • 5/5
      While the first in the series is the best, I loved this one too. It helps to know someone who works in the computer industry--the humor is that much easier to appreciate. It wasn't really grabbing my attention until the buzzard has his little star scene--that was hilarious! And the ending is really great. Go, Meg!CMB
    • 4/5
      This was a quick and fun read. I saw someone on Amazon refer to the first book in this series as a "cozy mystery" and I think that's an accurate description. There's not a lot of horror, and what horror there is, with regards to the murder that has taken place, is somewhat silly and zany. Meg is a likeable character and based on this book, I've added the others in this series to my wish list now too. :)
    • 3/5
      This is the least entertaining of Meg Lanslow's mystery escapades. When her brother Rob asks Meg to go undercover in his game software company to root out what might be industrial sabotage Meg is stuck playing receptionist with only a buzzard for company, until the mail room boy is murdered right under her nose. The humour is as good as ever, the mystery is solid but the Meg's family are the prime suspects theme has become threadbare with overuse. This is still better than most cozies but lacks that added sparkle one would expect with a new Andrews novel.
    • 4/5
      I think this series is great fun. They're a quick, funny read with a decent mystery. Certainly, iI didn't peg the murderer - although I have to admit that I don't actually try when reading mysteries these days. I'm along for the ride, not the mental exercise and I just want to enjoy the book, not have to do any work. I actually think the greatest weakness of this book was the lack of Meg's crazy family. They take things up a notch or two and having only her dad and Rob present toned things down a lot. Rob as the accidental corporate computer guru was a nice joke; knowing him as we do from the days he was creating Lawyers from Hell back in Murder with Peacocks, the awe given to him by his staff is rather funny. When it gets turned on Meg as well (the original 'Judge Hammer' - snicker) that's a lovely touch. I felt the lack of Michael, who works as a good foil for Meg and his presence only via cell phone was a disappointment. I have collected my favourite recent quote from this book. Living with an it guru of my own who is often late at work as they upgrade the latest piece of software, I was delighted by this: A build, I'd learned in the last two weeks, was an important recurring event in companies that developed computer software. As far as I could understand, it meant that Jack, as team leader, told everybody to stop messing around with their parts of the program - yes, right now dammit, not in half an hour - and launched a two-hour semiautomated process that was as temperamental as cooking a soufflé.I just love the temperamental soufflé part, which Dave assures me is an accurate description.