Thanks to Sandie Herron, readers are almost caught up with Donna Andrews’ Meg Langslow series in audio format. Today, Sandie reviews The Penguin Who Knew Too Much.

The Penguin Who Knew Too Much
Written by:  Donna Andrews
Narrated by:  Bernadette Dunne
Series:  Meg Langslow, Book 8
Audible
Audiobook
Length: 7 hours and 16
minutes
Publisher: Dreamscape Media, LLC
(February 22, 2017)
Penguins in Virginia? 
Yep, Meg Langslow’s dad offered to foster the penguins from the Caerphilly
Zoo while its owner, Patrick Lanahan, regrouped to get his finances in
order.  Dr. Langslow had been digging a
hole for a pond in the basement of Meg and her fiancé Michael’s newly repaired Victorian
home when he found a body.  The police
were called.  Suddenly Meg found herself
accepting delivery of a group of llamas and camels that had been fostered for
the zoo by others who couldn’t find the owner. 
She would have preferred to join the rest of the family helping move
into the house on this Memorial Day weekend so she could hide breakables before
the party began on Monday.  She prayed it
wouldn’t interfere with The Plan; Meg and Michael planned to elope from the
party and head out on a two week honeymoon. 
Just then Sheila Flugleman, manager of the feed store,
arrived to get permission to scoop up all the zoo animal dung for the
ZooperPoop she sold at the store.  The
yard was beginning to smell, which would surely get worse after the hyenas
arrived.  Next the claustrophobic,
medical examiner Dr. Smoot had severe distress about going into the
basement.  The doorbell rang, and Meg
discovered Dr. Montgomery Blake, the wildlife zoologist who everyone knew from
National Geographic, Discovery channel, and Animal Planet.  He was in town to examine the zoo only to
find its owner and animals missing.
While Meg snooped at the zoo, more new arrivals including a
group of protestors calling themselves the “Save Our Beasts” or SOBs, the Clay
county zoo owner, the animal welfare officer, the media, and more family joined
the ruckus going on.  Two Sprockets,
relatives of Edwina Sprocket who had owned the house, rang the bell believing
the body found was one of their dead relatives. 
Forbidden to dig inside, they began digging trenches in the yard to try
and locate the missing relative.
Lemurs, a donkey, and some of Mr. Early’s sheep from the
farm next door looked on as cousin Rose Noire tried to help Dr. Smoot, who had
spent the night in the backyard, past his phobias.  A class in animal massage was scheduled for
the afternoon.  Meg’s mother continued to
slowly move items into the house, rearranging as she went.  Things only went downhill from there.
Narrator Bernadette Dunne has the monumental task of calmly
bringing us this hectic accounting of a Memorial Day weekend in Virginia with
an almost-married couple moving into their first house, helped by family; and
she does a marvelous job.

Donna Andrews has brought us another hysterically funny
mystery.  It amazes me how well she can
write pandemonium, with one event after another adding to the hilarity, not
detracting from it.  The juxtaposition of
normal against chaos makes it so much funnier. 
There is a mystery at the root of the story – who is the body in the
basement, how did it get there, who killed it, and why?  The focus on solving that moves the story
along at a delicious pace, becoming the focus again by book’s end when all is
solved.  The big question that remains –
did Meg and Michael make it to their own wedding?