Audiobook Review: The Real Macaw by Donna Andrews

The Real Macaw
Author: Donna Andrews
Narrator: Bernadette Dunne
Series: Meg Langslow Mysteries (Book 13)
Publication: Dreamscape Media (June 15, 2008)
Length: 8 hours and 39 minutes

Description: During an early morning feeding for her four-month-old twins, Meg Langslow hears an odd noise and goes downstairs to find her living room filled with dozens of animals - cats, dogs, hamsters, gerbils, rabbits, guinea pigs, and a stunningly foul-mouthed macaw. She soon learns that financial woes have caused the local animal shelter to repeal its no-kill policy. Her kind-hearted father, her zoologist grandfather, and other like-minded citizens have stolen all the shelter animals, both as a gesture of protest and to protect them until the hated policy can be repealed.

But the volunteer who was transporting animals to new homes has been murdered. Was it the victim's tangled love life that drove someone to murder? Or the dark secrets behind local politics? And will Meg ever succeed in finding homes for all the animals that have landed in her life?

My Thoughts: In the thirteenth Meg Langslow mystery, Meg and Michael are coping with 4-month-old twins who have opposing sleep schedules. One night, while Meg is up feeding one, she hears noises downstairs and discovers that her grandfather, father and brother have burgled the local animal shelter and have brought the animals to her living room. New county policy and financial problems are changing the shelter from a no-kill shelter. 

The animals from hamsters to a monster Irish Wolfhound and a foul-mothed macaw were supposed to be moved elsewhere, but no one contact the man who was supposed to drive the truck to relocate the animals. But then the sheriff arrives and tells them that the driver had been murdered. 

Now, between taking care of her babies and dealing with the menagerie, she has to help solve the mystery. But that isn't enough. Soon Meg finds surveyors on her land and learns that the mayor is planning to use eminent domain to take her land and her father's land for development into a golf course and condos. 

Needless to say, the residents starting with those helping with the critter heist and expanding to most of the county, are all outraged but even calling in Mom's cousin Festus and his legal expertise doesn't stop foreclosure on the buildings the mayor put up as collateral for his town improvement plans which mostly improved the property of his family and cronies. 

Meg has to search for a killer while all the public buildings - including the police department - are packing up and moving before the foreclosure happens.

This was another fun episode in an engaging and humorous series. While engaging as print books, these really shine as audiobooks. Bernadette Dunne does an excellent job with all the characters. 

I bought this one at Chirp August 25, 2022. You can buy your copy here.