Six Geese A-Slaying by Donna Andrews (Dec. 2009)

Mystery Book Group -- Dec. 10, 2009

Donna Andrews    Six Geese A-Slaying

(photo by Joe Henson)

http://www.donnaandrews.com/

In the fall of 1997 she started on the road to publication by submitting her first completed mystery manuscript to the Malice Domestic/St. Martin's Press Best First Traditional Mystery contest. Upon learning that Murder with Peacocks had won, she acquired a copy of Peterson's Field Guide to Eastern Birds and settled down to have fun in her fictional world for as long as she could get away with it. Murder with Peacocks won the Agatha, Anthony, Barry, and Romantic Times awards for best first novel and the Lefty award for the funniest mystery of 1999. Subsequent books have also received Agatha and Lefty nominations, and Crouching Buzzard, Leaping Loon won the Toby Bromberg Award for Excellence (presented by Romantic Times) for the Most Humorous Mystery of 2003. Owl's Well That Ends Well (April 2005), the sixth book in the series, features a murder at a giant yard sale. No Nest for the Wicket (August 2006), the seventh book, explores eXtreme Croquet, and in The Penguin Who Knew Too Much (August 2007), Meg discovers penguins--and a body--in her basement. In Cockatiels at Seven, Meg must solve a crime while encumbered with toddler. She must organize her county's holiday parade and solve a related murder in Six Geese A-Slaying. And the latest, Swan for the Money, features competitive rose growing and belted Tennessee fainting goats.

Awards:
St. Martin's/Malice Domestic Award for Best First Traditional Mystery, 1998, Agatha Award, Anthony Award, and Barry Award, all for best first novel of 1999, and Lefty Award, for funniest mystery book of 1999, all for Murder with Peacocks; Agatha Award, best novel of 2002, for You've Got Murder; Toby Bromberg Award for Excellence, Romantic Times, 2003, for Crouching Buzzard, Leaping Loon; Agatha Award for Best Novel nominee, 2003 for Crouching Buzzard, Leaping Loons, 2004 for We'll Always Have Parrots, 2005 for Owls Well that Ends Well, 2007 for The Penguin Who Knew Too Much, 2008 for Six Geese a-Slaying; Lefty Award, 2005, for We'll Always Have Parrots.
Personal Information:
Born in Yorktown, VA. Education: Graduated from the University of Virginia. Memberships: Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, Private Investigators and Security Association. Addresses: Home: Reston, VA. Office: 11654 Plaza America Dr., Ste. 313, Reston, VA 20190. E-mail: donna@donnaandrews.com.
Career Information:
Writer. Previously worked on the communications staff of a large financial institution, Washington, DC.

Meg Langslow Mysteries

1. Murder, with peacocks (c 1999)
While trying to manage being the maid of honor in three weddings, Meg Langslow finds herself in the midst of a mystery when her former sister-in-law's soon-to-be stepfather is found dead.

2. Murder with puffins (c 2000)
Meg and her boyfriend Michael's romantic Monhegan Island getaway is overshadowed by a hurricane that maroons everyone there, including Meg's intrusive family, and a murder in which her father is named the chief suspect.

3. Revenge of the wrought-iron flamingos (2001)
At the celebration of the British surrender at Yorktown, craftswoman Meg Langslow finds herself investigating a murder while trying to stay on the right side of her future mother-in-law.

4. Crouching buzzard, leaping loon (2003)
Operating the switchboard at the business office shared by her brother's computer-game company and six unusual therapists, Meg Langslow finds herself drawn into a mystery when the company's practical joker is murdered on top of a mail cart.

5. We'll always have parrots (2004)
Journeying to a cult TV show's fan convention in the hope that her actor fianc?e will be able to renegotiate contract terms with the program's manipulative leading lady, Meg finds herself investigating when the star is found murdered.

6. Owls well that ends well (2005)
Hoping to clear out years of junk that has accumulated in a recently purchased, dilapidated mansion, Meg and Michael host a big lawn sale that becomes the scene of a murder when a body is doscovered in the barn.

7. No nest for the wicket (2006)
Croquet is a genteel game, usually played on a summer afternoon on a tranquil green lawn. Extreme Croquet is a whole other story. That's what Meg Langslow and her new friends are playing on the several-acre farm of her new neighbor, a countryside studdedwith rocks, steep hills, and placid, seemingly immovable cows. While this society game can get quite warm, it hasn't reached the stage of actual homicide--at least not until Meg knocks her ball down a small cliff and encounters the body of a dead woman.

8. The penguin who knew too much (2007)
While digging a pool in the basement for a flock of penguins from the bankrupt local zoo, Meg Langslow's father accidentally stumbles upon a body buried beneath the floor, sending Meg on a desperate quest to find a killer.

9. Cockatiels at seven (2008)
Reluctantly agreeing to babysit for her friend Karen's toddler son Timmy, Meg Langslow ends up with the child when Karen goes missing, and she launches a personal investigation while coping with some very dangerous people interested in Timmy.

10. Six geese a-slaying (2008)
With their home being used as the marshalling point for the annual Caerphilly Christmas parade, Meg Langslow, her husband Michael, and Chief Burke find the festivities interrupted by murder when the local curmudgeon playing Santa turns up dead.

11. Swan for the money (2009)
Meg Langlsow volunteers to help her parents when the Caerphilly Garden Club sponsors its first annual rose show. But after a few hours of dealing with her parents' competitors, Meg is worried--someone is attempting to kill the wealthy woman on whose estate the competition is being held. Could it be one of the eccentric rose growers after the coveted Black Swan trophy? Or one of the animal welfare activists--which includes Meg's zoologist grandfather--resorting to murder against the intended victim's treatment of farm animals?.


Turing Hopper Mysteries

1. You've got murder (2002) 

When Zack, a workaholic computer expert, suddenly disappears, his friend, Turing, a sentient artificial intelligence personality created by Zack, begins to suspect foul play and turns sleuth to find out what happened to her creator.

2. Click here for murder (2003) 
When her human colleague, Ray Santiago, is found murdered, Turing Hopper, an artificial intelligence personality, joins her human assistants, Maude and Tim, on a search for the killer and turns up dark secrets from Ray's past.

3. Access denied (2004) 
When Turing Hopper, Artificial Intelligence Personality and sleuth, uncovers information tied to criminal Nestor Garcia's long-dormant credit cards, she sends her human assistants to investigate.

4. Delete all suspects (2005)
 When a high-tech geek named Eddie ends up in the hospital, the victim of a hit-and-run "accident," Turing the AIP computer comes to the aid of her private detective friend Tim to find out who was responsible.

Mysteries Featuring Dogs (Nov. 2009)

                     

Mystery Stories Featuring Dogs

Cynthia Alwyn: Scent of Murder
The founder of a volunteer canine search-and-rescue team in Sacramento, Brenna Scott and her group find themselves up against a diabolical adversary as they embark on a search for a number of missing children.

Cynthia Baxter: Reigning Cats and Dogs Mysteries
(First book in series) When veterinarian Jessica Popper and her canine companions uncover a half-buried corpse during a house call to a local horse farm, she teams up with sometimes lover PI Nick Burby to help her discover who wanted the victim, a notorious PR mogul, dead.

Carol Lea Benjamin: Rachel Alexander and Dash Mysteries
(First book in series) Private investigator Rachel Alexander and her pit bull, Dashiell, begin their search for a missing dog and refuse to leave the streets until they have sniffed out a murderer.

Laurien Berenson: Melanie Travis Mysteries
(First book in series) Thinking her life could not be worse after a disastrous summer peaks with her uncle's death, Melanie Travis realizes that she is in for more trouble when the disappearance of her uncle's prize-winning poodle suggests that murder has taken place.

Blaize Clement: Duplicity Dogged the Dachsund; the second Dixie Hemingway
Waving to the driver of a car that speeds by during her morning run with her dachshund Mame, Dixie Hemingway suddenly realizes that she accidentally waved to a killer when she and Mame stumble upon a corpse.

Susan Conant: Dog Lover's Mysteries (Holly Winter)
(First book in series) Holly Winter, a writer and amateur sleuth, and her adopted Alaskan malamute, Rowdy, team up to track down a killer lurking at a dog show.

Jonathan Englert: Bull Moose and Dog Run Mysteries
(First book in series) When his master, Harry, a man still grieving over the loss of his beloved girlfriend Imogen, becomes embroiled with a cadre of would-be occultists, one of whom is also a murderer, Randolph, the canine Labrador sleuth, teams up with some of his animal friends to find a killer

Suzette A. Hill: Francis Oughterard Mysteries
(First book in series) His hopes for a restful life shattered by the realities of parish life, Reverend Francis Oughterard finds himself entangled in an overwhelming murder case in which he is unwittingly aided by his supercilious cat and a bone-obsessed hound.

Cornelius Kane: Unscratchables
(First book in series) When some Rottweiler gangsters are murdered and it looks like a cat was the killer, bull terrier detective Crusher McNash is assigned to work with Siamese agent Cassius Lap of the Feline Bureau of Investigation to solve the case.

Jill Morgan (ed.): Creature Cozies
A cast of crime-solving canines and felines highlights a collection of eleven mysteries, written by J.A. Jance, Jan Burke, Carole Nelson Douglas, Ed Gorman, and other notable authors.

Spencer Quinn: Chet and Bernie Mysteries
(First book in series) Intrepid canine detective Chet accompanies his human police officer partner, Bernie, on a first assignment involving the disappearance of a teenage girl who ran with the wrong crowd, a case that is complicated by Bernie's dysfunctional personal life.

David Rosenfelt: New Tricks
"Edgar-award nominated author David Rosenfelt's hilarious hero, Andy Carpenter, plunges into a high-profile murder case in which a bernese puppy and his golden retriever play instrumental roles"--Provided by publisher.

Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey (Oct. 2009)

Josephine Tey: Daughter of Time

Mystery Book Group, October 2009

 
Elizabeth Mackintosh (1896? - 1952): known as Josephine Tey, and Gordon Daviot.
 
Josephine Tey's reputation as a detective novelist rests on eight mysteries. Like her contemporaries in the genre, Tey portrayed a world in which crimes are solved; but she rejected the tidy conclusions characteristic of classic detective fiction, preferring to leave her readers vaguely uneasy, often disconcerted, at the novel's end. Those responsible for inflicting pain and suffering, even death, sometimes emerge completely unscathed. Others, wrongfully accused, find their lives unalterably changed by the unprovoked evil that has overtaken them.
 
 
 
The Alan Grant Mysteries by Josephine Tey
  

The man in the queue   Pub Date: 1995   Series: Alan Grant mysteries, 1

Summary: A stabbing murder in the midst of a London theatre crowd sends Scotland Yard Inspector Alan Grant on a far-flung investigation.

A shilling for candles   Pub Date: 1988   Series: Alan Grant mysteries, 2

Summary: Scotland Yard searches for clues concerning the cause of the death of actress Christine Clay among her friends and family and in her will.

The franchise affair   Pub Date: 1998   Series: Alan Grant mysteries, 3

Summary: When fifteen-year-old Betty Kane accuses Marion Sharpe and her mother of kidnapping her and holding her prisoner in their house, The Franchise, their lawyer, Robert Blair, determines to prove that Betty is lying, in spite of her details.

To love and be wise   Pub Date: 1988   Series: Alan Grant mysteries, 4

Summary: Detective-Sergeant Grant of Scotland Yard investigates the mysterious disappearance of Leslie Searle, an American photographer.

The daughter of time Pub Date: 1995   Series: Alan Grant mysteries, 5

Summary: A 20th-century policeman sees a picture of Richard III and reinvestigates Richard's role in the murder of the princes in the Tower using all available information about Richard's time.

The singing sands Pub Date: 1953   Series: Alan Grant mysteries, 6

Summary: Scotland Yard inspector Alan Grant becomes involved in a murder-case investigation when he accidentally finds a dead young man and an enigmatic verse in a train.

Other titles:

Brat Farrar Pub Date: 1997  

Brat poses as an heir to the Ashby fortune and becomes more involved in family affairs than he wishes.

The expensive halo: a fable without moral  Pub Date: 1978

In this comedy of social contrasts, set in London during the heady 20s, rich, bored Ursula Deane falls for a penniless violinist whose sister becomes the object of the attentions of Ursula's brother, Lord Chitterne.

Kif: an unvarnished history Pub Date: 1969

Tey's first book, a novel originally published under the pseudonym of Gordon Daviot in      1929. A sad story of a young man's downward path in the hard years in England after WWI.

Miss Pym disposes  Pub Date: 1998  

A solicitous guest lecturer at an English women's college uses her own psychological theories to solve a campus murder case.

The privateer  Pub Date: 1977

A fictional account of the adventures of Henry Morgan, focuses on his exploits as a privateer in the West Indies.

Related titles:
 
The Wench Is Dead (1989)    Colin Dexter (Author)
 While laid up with an ulcer, Inspector Morse decides to try to solve a murder case that is a century old.
 
The Fate of Princes (1991)   P.C. Doherty (Author)
Francis, Viscount Lovell, is asked by his close friend Richard III to investigate the disappearance of the two princes from the Tower of London. The novel exposes the bloody politics of the War of the Roses and offers a dramatic and intriguing solution to one of the most baffling of historical mysteries, the fate of the young princes in the tower.
 
The Murders of Richard III (1974)  Elizabeth  Peters (Author)
Jacqueline Kirby is invited to a weekend costume party at a country estate where all the guests are impersonating King Richard III and his contemporaries. Jacqueline is asked to authenticate a recently discovered letter that may clear Richard of allegations that he murdered his nephews, the famous Princes in the Tower, 500 years ago. The antics of her fellow guests amuse Jacqueline until someone begins to play practical jokes that mirror the ways in which the actual historical personages died. Then, one of the jokes turns deadly serious and Jaqueline must solve a mystery in her own century as well as the one in the past.
 
White queen (2009)  Philippa Gregory (Author)
A tale inspired by the War of the Roses follows the conflict from the perspective of Elizabeth Woodville, who ascends to royalty and fights for the well-being of her family, including two sons whose imprisonment in the Tower of London precedes a devastating unsolved mystery.
 
Rose for the crown (2006) Anne Easter Smith (Author)
Inspired by the life of Kate Haute, a tale set in medieval England follows her rise from a peasant-class family to the beloved mistress of the future King Richard III, with whom she bears three illegitimate children, endures a dangerous political war, and struggles against accusations about his murdered nephews.
 
To the tower born (2005)  Robin Maxwell (Author)
Debated for more than five centuries, the disappearance of the young princes Edward and Richard from the Tower of London in 1483 has stirred the imaginations of numerous writers from Shakespeare to Josephine Tey and posited the question: Was Richard III the boys' murderer, or was he not? In a captivating novel rich in mystery, color, and historical lore, Robin Maxwell offers a new, controversial perspective on this tantalizing enigma.The events are witnessed through the eyes of quick-witted Nell Caxton, only daughter of the first English printer, William Caxton, and Nell's dearest friend, "Bessie," daughter of the King of England, sister to the little princes, and founding ancestress of the Tudor dynasty.
 
Sunne in splendor (1982) Sharon Kay Penman (Author)
A fictional account of the life and times of Richard III captures the pageantry, passion, intrigue, and, above all, tragedy of the War of the Roses, in the story of the last Plantagenet ruler of England.

 
The Last Plantagenets (1962)   Thomas Bertram Costain (Author)
King Richard III of England (1452-1485) has been vilified in history and literature as a base, evil, physically deformed specimen who cruelly murdered his two nephews, buried them in the Tower of London, and usurped the throne. Thomas B. Costain reexamines the complex body of mythology that surrounds Richard. He chronicles the lives, achievements, lineages and alliances of Richard's Yorkist Plantagenet and Neville forebears and Lancastrian ancestors, whose lines descend from William the Conqueror. He outlines the bloody, protracted War of the Roses, which planted the seeds of Richard's later fall from grace at the hands of traitors within his own extended family. Analyzing contemporary correspondence, household and civic records, government documents and forensic evidence, Costain reconstructs not only the chronological events of the era, but also Richard's character and behavior, casting doubt on tales of the king's perfidy, and positing a more likely suspect in Richard's successor, Henry VII.

An Expert in Murder (2008)  Nicola Upson (Author)
Traveling to London in 1934 to celebrate the triumphant final week of her play Richard of Bordeaux, popular writer Josephine Tey is caught up by the murder of a fellow train passenger, in a case that raises the suspicions of Detective Inspector Archie Penrose.  An Expert in Murder is both a tribute to one of the most enduringly popular writers of crime and a richly atmospheric detective novel in its own right.