Donna Andrews has done it again! Meg and her family are absolutely hilarious, and this has become my favorite series over the years. In this installment, Meg’s brother and fiancé get married and are using Meg’s house and yard for the reception. The mother’s are in overdrive, using every person available, including Meg. However, when Kevin, Meg’s nephew, and his friend stumble upon a not-so-cold case, Meg is drafted into helping them. With the help of Kevin, Chief Burke, and a few other friends, Meg is able to solve the case and still show at the wedding. I did miss grandfather and Meg’s parents, as they had a smaller role than usual, but still a great read!

Thanks to Net Galley for an early copy of this book. I have read all the books in this series and am usually impatiently waiting for the next to come out. This one did not disappoint . Meg and the usual crew are preparing for a Rob's wedding and trying to keep nephew Kevin and his friend for being killed. I particularly enjoyed the contrast between the very first book, in which Meg was also preparing for multiple weddings. This time she has figured out how to avoid much of the wedding craziness with her sleuthing. Resolution of the multiple mysteries were not surprising but the fun is in getting there.

family, family-dynamics, friendship, law-enforcement, cold-case, college-town, small-town, blacksmith, missing-persons, college-scandal, town-rivalries, situational-humor, verbal-humor, animals, Virginia, fun*****

Meg, the Langslow extended family of people and farmyard animals are back! Best of all we get to see the sleuthing abilities of several besides Meg. A teen geek family member and his friend have started up a podcast series of cold cases in Virginia when someone takes exception to something and threatens one of the guys. The police chief is on board with Meg and friends looking into some of the cold cases because he takes the threat to the young men seriously (and half of the cold cases are not a threat to his jurisdiction. The background insanity is "the mothers" overwhelming preparations for a family wedding. I tried to read it as if not familiar with the series, and I really do think that it is at least as much fun that way. Of course I loved it and laughed all the way!
This cannot be an unbiased review because I reread some of them (the print copies walk away so now I have them in audio) and wait with bated breath for each new one
I requested and received a free ebook copy from St. Martin's Press/Minotaur Books via NetGalley. Thank you!

Meg's family is having another wedding. This time though, instead of Meg being roped into organizing the entire wedding, she just has to do some minor errands, like pick up the feral peacocks. She also has become involved in finding out who tried to kill her nephew Kevin's friend.
Kevin and Casey have begun a true crime podcast and after Casey is nearly run down, they go through their cases and narrow the field down to three that might be why Casey was attacked: A robbery where the clerk was killed in nearby Clay County, a 26-year-old cheating scandal at the Caerphilly Business college, and an old missing person's case from Charlottesville. Once Meg is on the case(s) she begins to find a lot of interesting evidence.
This book isn't quite a cozy, but it definitely has humor. I enjoyed the mystery aspect and even the wedding, but the ending was a little unnecessary. As most readers of series' my concern is new books show the author is becoming repetitive and stale. This is not one of those books. I really enjoyed not only the mysteries, but the character interplay.

Kevin, Meg's nephew, is working on a True Crime podcast with his friend Casey. They must have stirred something up, because someone tried to kill Casey. They need Meg and her special skills (and connections) to find out which case is the problem, and hand it off to the police. But is it ever that easy in Caerphilly?

Three cases are likely: a robbery homicide, a disappearance, and a college cheating scandal with a suicide (that was hushed up). Why such a reaction now? Years later? More importantly, will any of this affect Rob's Wedding of the Century (thanks to his mother-in-law and grandmother) in a few days?

If bad guys mess up this wedding, they will learn what wrath really means. And we will all be obligated to give them a moment of silence. Let's hope it doesn't come to that!

As always, Donna Andrews has given us a wonderful mystery full of relatives--however distant in the family tree--humor, danger, complexity, and an understanding of the human condition. Her books are always an adventure to savor, a delight to read, and too soon over!

NOTE: Clean, aside from mild swearing.

4.6/5 Stars

Thanks to Minotaur Books and St. Martin's Press, and NetGalley for the free preview of this ebook; the review is voluntary.

#RoundUptheUsualPeacocks #NetGalley
#MegLangslowMysteryBook31
#DonnaAndrews
#StMartinsPress #MinotaurBooks
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I always look forward to a new book in this series, and this was worth the wait. Meg’s nephew Kevin, a techie who lives in her basement, needs Megs face to face people skills when his online skills fail at figuring out who may have tried to kill his true crime podcast partner. As she narrows down the cold cases they’ve reported on, three stand out, and the details and people involved with each make for their own investigations. I enjoyed the various story lines, all taking place against the chaos of wedding preparations going on at Megs farm. Some of the regular characters, like the grandfather, don’t appear, but I enjoyed the switch up to meeting new ones who were included in the different plots, it made the story a bit fresher while it still kept some of the same background themes, like Spike and the crazy county next door. All in all, a great read, and thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance copy.

I never know what I’m going to laugh about when I read one of the books in this series, but molting peacocks caught me off guard.
Meg is a great character and her wild and colorful family always make me laugh.
I enjoyed this story with all the cold cases and the podcast, it was really interesting to see how much effort it takes when investigating a cold case.
I’m looking forward to seeing what I will be laughing about next in this quirky series by Donna Andrews.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for selecting me to read an advanced copy of this book.

This series had gotten a little stale for me. I still like all the characters but the storylines, particularly the ones set at Christmas, have gotten repetitive.

While we still have a lot of family related storyline here since it's set around a wedding, the actual mystery portion was more interesting than of late. I like the use of the very contemporary podcast in the mystery too. I didn't like the very ending much. I think it would have ended just fine with the wedding and not Rob and Delaney's little addition.

Glad I saw this on Netgalley which provided a copy in exchange for my honest review.

This book was a fun read but so co fusing…I could not keep track of all the cold cases,the characters, and what was happening in this book…although could be a quick read, but there were some problems with the story. This author is one I enjoy reading…the book was sent to me by Netgalley for review.

I really enjoyed this book. It’s got all my favorite people and more. It’s exciting and fun. The story is interesting. I can’t wait to see what happens next. #RoundUptheUsualPeacocks #NetGalley

"Round Up The Usual Peacocks" is a fun story of the chaos that Meg's extended family attracts. It's Rob and Delaney's wedding, and there are a few fun nostalgia callbacks to the first book in the series with Rob's, fortunately, unsuccessful wedding. I didn't do a head count, but it seemed like most of the old familiar faces got at least a little bit of page time. Cold cases, muder, missing persons, with the Pruitts and Clay County living up to their horrid reputation.

Thirty one in Donna Andrew's long running series about Meg Lansdale, this book involves Meg and her nephew Kevin. Kevin is an online genius but he hits the wall in his work to solve a cold case.
He needs Meg to handle the work of dealing with real people.
The twist between the work of the internet and working with real folks is an interesting twist