How the Finch Stole Christmas! A Meg Langslow Mystery

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.)