Gone Gull: A Meg Langslow Mystery

In Agatha-winner Andrews’s enjoyable 21st Meg Langslow mystery (after 2016’s Die like an Eagle), a vandal is plaguing the Biscuit Mountain Craft Center, with such acts as strewing lingerie around a classroom and damaging artworks. Meg’s spirited, iron-willed grandmother Cordelia, the center’s owner, has her share of enemies, including a greedy developer who wanted to build a luxury resort on the site and the jealous owner of the Jazz Hands Art Academy outside Charlottesville, Va. Between playing referee to her ornery bird-enthusiast grandfather and Cordelia, Meg, who teaches blacksmithing at the center, is determined to keep these petty acts from ruining Biscuit Mountain’s reputation. The stakes rise when Meg visits the studio of hotheaded painter Edward Prine and finds Prine lying dead on the floor with a knife stuck in his back. Witty prose and distinctive characters set this long-running series above the cozy pack. Agent: Ellen Geiger, Frances Goldin Literary Agency. (Aug.)