Book Review: Murder With Puffins

Reviewed By: Carol Schwaderer Dickinson - RAM

Murder With Puffins     Amazon US PB Amazon US HC Amazon Canada PB Amazon Canada HC
Donna Andrews
Class/Genre:   Mystery   Amateur Sleuth   Woman Main Character
Series: Meg Lanslow # 2
St. Martin's Minotaur, 2001, $6.50, 290pp

This second in the Meg Lanslow series takes place in an entirely new locale from the first. Meg and Michael attempt to find a little private time by escaping to her Aunts summer cottage on the coast of Maine. Unfortunately everybody else in the family has the same idea. So they are stuck together to wait out a fall hurricane with every birdwatcher on the coast of Maine.

The first "Murder with Peacocks" was laugh out loud funny in several places and the characters were more than a little spoofy. In this book there are less laugh out loud moments and the characters are less spoofy. And I liked it the better for it. The humor is definitely there, more subtle and based in the underlying premise more than slapstick moments. I liked the underlying plot and the red herrings, all set in the classic genre of "the murderer among us" in a closed community of an island isolated by weather. There was just the right amount of humor, hint of romance, elements of suspense. All in all a perfect modern cozy. The degree of writing maturity between this and the first leads me to expect really great things in the future of this series.

Carol Schwaderer Dickinson - RAM

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Carol Schwaderer Dickinson - RAM