May 21, 2012
The future of Caerphilly, Va., is at stake in Agatha-winner Andrews’s warm, charming 14th Meg Langslow mystery (after 2011’s The Real Macaw). While the town hosts the Caerphilly Days festival for the summer tourists, under the surface the locals battle a finance company following former mayor George Pruitt’s embezzlement of the town’s funds. The festival not only helps raise sympathy for the beleaguered town but also conceals the activities of those who are stealthily supporting town recluse Phineas K. Throckmorton, who’s barricaded himself in the basement of the repossessed and guarded courthouse. When a corporate vice president is fatally shot in the courthouse basement, Throckmorton is suspected—and the town residents can’t share his alibi without revealing their secret tunnel. Blacksmith, mother, and occasional town deputy Meg must rally her resources to target the killer, just as the security hawk of the title targets Throckmorton’s pigeons. Agent: Ellen Geiger, Frances Goldin Literary Agency.