Synopses & Reviews
As in her previous Christmas mysteries, Six Geese a-Slaying, Duck the Halls, and The Nightingale Before Christmas, Andrews continues to write "firmly in the grand tradition of Agatha Christie's Christmas books" (Toronto Globe and Mail).
New York Times bestselling author Donna Andrews takes us home to Caerphilly for the holidays in her new hilarious Christmas mystery How the Finch Stole Christmas
Meg's husband has decided to escalate his one-man show of Dickens' A Christmas Carol into a full-scale production with a large cast including their sons Jamie and Josh as Tiny Tim and young Scrooge and Meg helping as stage manager.
The show must go on, even if the famous--though slightly over-the-hill--actor who's come to town to play the starring role of Scrooge has brought a sleigh-load of baggage and enemies with him. And why is Caerphilly suddenly overrun with a surplus of beautiful caged finches?
How the Finch Stole Christmas is guaranteed to put the "ho ho hos" into the holidays of cozy lovers everywhere with its gut-bustingly funny mystery.
Review
"Intrigue...amusement...Andrews reliably delivers. She also manages to slip in profundities and sentiments that warm the heart." New York Journal of Books on Nightingale Before Christmas
Review
"[A] satisfying, humorous entry in the long-running series." Booklist on How the Finch Stole Christmas!
Review
"Agatha winner Andrews’s pleasing 22nd Meg Langslow mystery (after Gone Gull) finds Meg serving as the assistant director of her husband Michael’s staging of Dickens’s A Christmas Carol for the Caerphilly Va. winter festival. Michael has brought in Malcolm Haver an aging once popular actor to play Scrooge but Malcolm’s drinking threatens the production. When Malcolm sneaks off Meg follows him in her car to an isolated farmhouse where she spots him buying liquor from a bootlegger. She also discovers a nearby barn filled with animals including golden retriever puppies dozens of cats and a chimp. Later the bootlegger turns up dead with two bullet holes in his forehead—and Malcolm disappears. Rescuing the animals—which becomes a community effort—and ensuring that the show goes on matter more than finding Malcolm or solving the bootlegger’s murder. Andrews manages her large cast with dexterity and drops clues to the culprits’ identity but the ending will catch most readers by surprise. Agent: Ellen Geiger Frances Goldin Literary Agency. (Oct.)" Publishers Weekly Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved."
About the Author
Donna Andrews is a winner of the Agatha, Anthony, and Barry Awards, a Romantic Times Award for best first novel, as well as the Lefty and Toby Bromberg awards for funniest mystery. She is a member of MWA, Sisters in Crime, and the Private Investigators and Security Association. Andrews lives in Reston, Virginia. How the Finch Stole Christmas! is Andrews's twenty-second book and fourth Christmas mystery in the Meg Langslow series.