For Duck’s Sake by Donna Andrews read by Bernadette Dunne (Meg Langslow #37) 5 stars

The book was fabulous with one main mystery along with side capers related to the main mystery. Bernadette Dunne shines with her narration. After listening to Ms. Dunne narrating the previous Meg Langslow mystery, I can tell who is talking without thinking about it. It is mostly the voices of familiar characters with a few new one thrown in. I still would give this one 5 stars even if the lady archeologist didn’t have enough of a British accent. I can’t wait for “Five Golden Wings” later this year.

Thank you Netgalley and MacMillan Audio for this Advance Audiobook Copy

So Meg Langslow is one of my current favorite characters in literature-- she is a tall, organized, very intelligent argument intuitive blacksmith who lives in Virginia with her animal-loving family, and she keeps getting involved in mysteries.
This current mystery has reflections from the past, and there are the usual hilarious characters. I read this in print first and then, thanks to NetGalley, I got the opportunity to listen to the audiobook. I do read these multiple times because they're pretty funny, and I wanted to see how well it was done-- the narrator did an amazing job making Meg out to be practical and showing the humor in her interactions with the townspeople. Very satisfying

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the ALC. This is a solid cozy mystery in a greater series but nothing exciting. My assumption is that if you’ve listened to the other books in the series and have attachments to the characters it will be much more enjoyable. The narrator was great.

Classic Donna Andrews brilliance! Full to brimming with characters who are charming and humorous and even exasperating! All backed by the cozy small town ambiance that has made Caerphilly my absolute favourite fictional setting ever! In fact, I reread (well, re-listen) to the whole series every year and each book is just as memorable and captivating as the first time I read it. This 37th Meg Langslow instalment is a perfect example of why.

Madcap mayhem and town hijinks, in this case the altruistic Mutt March’s bid to rehome countless numbers of dogs…who all need costumes for the parade. Of course. It’s absolute chaos at Meg’s house so she sets off on the relatively blissful pursuit of a cold case murder. What could go wrong? If Donna Andrews is writing the story, plenty! Bwahahaha!

I’m still giddy and grinning over all the shenanigans and plot twists galore. Still thrilling over getting to spend time with characters who have become as dear to me as my own family. I love watching the twins grow up while key older characters remain eternally ageless because they are so integral to the series – a bit of fictional magic that makes me so, so happy!

And the ultimate thrill is listening to Bernadette Dunne’s narration. Her performances highlight these characters perfectly and I get the feeling that she is relishing the story just as much as I am. Love the connection that brings to my listening experience. Highly recommend the audio editions for the entire series!

My thanks to Macmillan Audio and Net Galley for providing me with an audio copy of this book.

Every year I look forward to a new addition to the Meg Langslow mystery series. It remains my all-time favorite cozy series. While I love the extended cast of characters and the murder mystery that generally centers the plot, over the past four books I have been getting tired of the regularity of murder. I know, this is a cozy mystery, it is supposed to feature a body and investigation. However, there are lots of ways to create suspense and mystery without creating a new death.

That is probably why I loved this story and encourage it for anyone who loves the ML series. In For Duck's Sake the mystery is a true surprise, the body is unexpected, and the resolution is classic cozy series.

While I love this series, one thing that falls short, but does not dampen my enthusiasm for this book is that it has less development on the family/personal front. But, given the overall change in the way the plot unfolded it was not an unwelcome change. Growth takes time and I look forward to revisiting all of the main and supporting characters in the future.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the ARC of this book. I really enjoyed it.

So i want to thank not only the author, #DonnaAndrews, and her publisher #Macmillanpublishers for the free ARC of #Forduck'ssake. I love every single Donna Andrews titles but this one hit the spot for me. I think it was a combination of involving rescue of dogs and a mystery from many years ago but I loved every plot point.

The Meg Langslow series is one I dip in and out of. I’ve read several, but no where near 37. Meg wears many hats – mom, wife, daughter, blacksmith, mayor’s assistant. This time around she’s helping prep for the Mutt March. a parade/festival to promote pet adoptions from the local shelters. She’s taking a break from the chaos at her house by going over the her brother’s – just in time for the backhoe digging out the duck pond to uncover a human arm bone.

This is a long-running series with lots of returning characters. Andrews does a good job at giving us enough information to know who is who and their relationships to each other, but not so much that it bogs the book down. I think this would work as a stand alone, but as with most series, the more you’ve read the more you know about, and hopefully enjoy, the characters and town.

As far as the case goes, most of the work is in finding out who the victim was, and then we move onto who the killer was. We have a lot going here, though, besides the main plotline, and it all gets a little complicated. We have the mystery skeleton, a missing elderly female neighbor, a dog adoption parade that has attracted the eyes of a nearby dog fighting ring, a newly discovered underground bunker filled with old drugs. It does eventually all get wrapped up, but I found myself just going along for the ride. Happily, all the dogs remain safe.

I listed to the audio and Dunne does a fabulous job as narrator. She gives Meg the perfect tone and attitude. She also keep the story light and the many characters distinct. I’ll be looking forward to listening to the next in the series.

This is one of my favorite cozy mystery series. The plots are interesting. The characters are wonderful. And the humor is top notch.

This time they find some bones (and other artifacts) from an old murder as they are digging a new duck pond for Meg's brother and his wife who live next door. How does this relate to the town's past? As if an unsolved crime isn't enough, we have the town's Mutt March trying to get a bunch of rescue dogs adopted and there are possibly some nefarious individuals trying to take off with some of the pups. Can these people be stopped?

And since I listened to the audiobook, I have to mention narrator Bernadette Dunne. She has been the voice of the Meg Langslow series characters since the beginning. She does a great job of bringing the characters to life. Old and young, male and female, she's terrific!

Thank you to Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for an ARC audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

I just love this series. Always a great read, combination of familiar characters and critters mixed with murder and mayhem. Meg gets herself tangled with up with old mysteries and skeletons (of all kinds). The nursing home is a wonderful addition to the town’s backdrop!

Title: For Duck's Sake
Author: Donna Anderson
Series: Meg Langslow Book #37
Format: 🎧
Narrator: Bernadette Dunn
Publisher: Macmillan Audio
Genre: Mystery/Thriller
Pub Date: August 5, 2025
My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐+ Fun Stars
Pages 320

Story starts when Meg Langslow is busy organizing a fun community event featuring a dog parade called the "Mutt March". It is in hopes many of e dogs will be adopted and have a forever home. The dog dogs dress up for the parade and then there are fun game involving the dogs and children.

She stops by her brother’ Robs farm as he and his wife Delaney having a growing family and wanted a bigger place. Iris Rafferty is delighted that her century old farm has a young family. She agreed to sell on the condition that she is allowed to continue to stay by living in the Mother-in-law suite. Iris states she is having ‘the best life ever’!
While Meg and Iris were watching the renovation being done, a ‘Duck Pond is being dug as studies have shown that duck eggs have a greater nutritional value than chicken eggs. As they are watching the digging suddenly stops as the driver notices something suspicious that looks like bones!

Meg calls Chief Burke. He then begins searching the police records to see if he can identify any missing persons who would fit the bill. He accepts Meg's offer to help. She starts in the library by talking to some of the old-timers who might remember. Meg’s Grandfather helps with his scientific brain and believes they may be able to get DNA from the fingers and do a DNA trace. I found this very interesting.
Story gets more and more involved. Meg’s twin teenage sons believe a dog fight outfit is going to try to steal dogs from the event to use bait. The organization knows to take this serious so do what they can to protect the dogs– even use a GPS tracker in case any do go missing.
Meanwhile Iris has disappeared. Yikes! What’s next???

Although this is #37 in this series, I have only read but a few but I. quickly got to know Meg and fell in love her and her somewhat quirky friends. I have enjoyed what I have read and definitely looking forward to #38!!

Ms. Anderson uses a bird theme in all her titles - such as " Murder with Peacocks, Revenge of the Wrought Iron Flamingos, Owls Well that Ends Well, Stork Raving Mad and #35 Between the Flock and a Hard Place".

Want to thank NetGalley and Macmillian Audio /St. Martin’s Press/Minotaur Books for this enjoyable early audiobook.
Publishing Release Date scheduled for August 5, 2025.

This cozy mystery story is a crazy mess of a plot that starts with finding an arm bone when digging a duck pond (hence the title). But it also takes place over a busy weekend with a dog parade and adoption event that have very little to do with the mystery. We get so many details about the dogs, a potential dog fighting ring, the tracking and inventory system used to manage all the dogs, and the parade's themed dog costumes, that I often lost the thread of the plot. Having not read the others in the series, I can still appreciate Meg in her "sandwich generation" position, parenting her kids and managing her aging parents. Everyone in the neighborhood relies on Meg, and she has her fingers in every pie. Long-time readers of this series will likely enjoy all the semi-comedic details of the town's happenings, but it made for an overly long and convoluted story for this newbie. I would recommend starting with earlier books in the series. The narrator did a good job with all the different voices, making them distinct and easily recognizable, and the author did a good job tying up all the loose ends. 3.4 rounded down.
My thanks to the author, publisher, @MacmillanAudio, and #NetGalley for early access to the audiobook #ForDucksSake for review purposes. Publication date: 5 August 2025

I love this series and the excellent narration of this audio book made it even more enjoyable. Join Meg and the rest of her menagerie and she solves a mystery that will keep you guessing until the end.

I received a copy of this audiobook from netGalley for a honest review.

I love this series! Anything by Donna Andrews really but Meg has a special place in my heart. This mystery was so good and I was surprised with the ending. Multiple fun and funny storylines to follow but like always it was worth the effort to try and keep everyone apart.

I am a HUGE fan of the Donna Andrews Meg Langslow series. I've read them all so I was very excited to get the new one. It started off a little strange to me because Micheal and her Notebook That Helps Her Breath don't appear until near the end of the book. I don't believe she ever calls her Notebook by the name. But besides that we were back in the swing of things.....Meg volunteering and taking on WAY too much. Her family surrounding her trying to help but causing more chaos. A dead body is found, someone disappears....Meg has to do research into the past and use animal knowledge to help solve the crime. I thought there was a loose string left hanging....but it all ended up happily ever after as usual. A little different from the others, but very enjoyable. I'd give it a 10/10.

Once again one of my favorite series and this book was a great addition to it. I love the Meg series and the author does an amazing job on combining humor and mystery and a fun family into a great book. Great narration as always too. Always five stars from me!

The narrator for these books is always absolutely amazing. She has SO MANY different voices to differentiate and does such a wonderful job.

I have previously read 32 of the books in this series and they are the perfect type of cozy mystery. It has humor, quirky characters that are fun to come back to, just a touch of suspense, and a comforting amount of knowing where the story will go. Meg Lanslow will pretend not to investigate a murder, while those in the police department continue to use her for her connections and her ability to get anyone to talk while warning her off the case. Spike, the tiny but very aggressive dog, will be involved in at least one interaction with a suspect. Her boys and her husband provide loving support from afar while maybe having some part in one of the capers, but largely having their own completely unrelated adventures. The town has a huge, ridiculous event of some kind; this time it is a dog parade to find interested people to adopt pets from local shelters, and if Meg can't do something, her mother can. We learn many random facts about the animals that pop up throughout the story. There is no monetary issue in placing cameras and monitoring all things technological everywhere they are needed. There are many red herrings throughout the story, but it is always a bad guy trying to get away with something, and never someone you hope that it isn't.

In this story, we have a twist because the murder Meg is investigating is from the 1980s or 90s and not something that happens during the course of the story. This provides a few very silly moments of back porch rubber necking the scene of the archeological dig while sipping on Arnold Palmers and making predictions about who the skeleton might be and how it got in the backyard where the pool is supposed to go. For a bit of the story, there was just so much going on that it was hard to focus. We have the mystery skeleton, a missing elderly female, a dog adoption parade that has attracted the eyes of a nearby dog fighting ring, and many town secrets that are being unearthed. The book does settle into a rhythm, and all the mysteries are pleasantly resolved.

This is the 37th Meg Langslow book, and although I have not finished all 36 before this, it does help to have some history in the series. Each book gives us new characters, or the characters bought new toys for their jobs, or met long-lost bioparents, or adopted new animals for various locations. So by the time you get to book 37, there are SO MANY things from previous books thrown in. Donna Andrews does a great job of reminding you with a sentence or two just enough about those past books to help you understand the connection, but if this is your first book, I feel like it would be a lot of references and so many characters without enough context. I have not always gone in order as I read the series, but I definitely would not start with #37.

Thank you, Netgalley and publisher, for giving me the opportunity to listen to the advanced audiobook in such a fun series.

I love this series! Each installment is like coming back to a group of familiar friends, and it's always a good time. In this one, Meg and her quirky relatives are helping to put on a festival to promote animal adoption, and it has turned out to be quite the circus at Meg and Michael's house. To escape the chaos for a moment, Meg goes next door where her brother has hired construction workers to dig a duck pond in his backyard. All is well until the bulldozer unearths a skeleton. Now, Meg and the chief of police must solve a 30-year-old murder in the midst of puppy mayhem.

All of my favorite characters are back in this story including Meg (of course), the twins, Dr. Blake, Meg's parents, Neighbor Seth and his sheep, the town vet, and more. Although the cast is large, long-time fans will be happy to revisit familiar faces, and new readers will catch on quickly enough. Meg is a wonderful narrator. I love how practical and down-to-earth she is even when there is chaos all around her. I also love that we've gotten to the point in the series where there is really not much angst between our amateur sleuth and the police. That's a trope that gets old after a while, but we don't really see it here at all. The mystery was solid here as well. I especially like the personal connection to some of the characters and how Donna Andrews has drawn in villains from previous stories as potential suspects. This is another fun nod to long-time readers who will remember some events from previous books that may or may not be relevant to the current mystery. Again, though, new readers won't be excluded.

If you are a fan of cozy mysteries this is a great series and a great installment. Can't wait for the next one.

I am in love with this series. Everything that adds to the Caerphilly lore is incredible. I love a cold case and the accompanying dog festival makes it a Donna Andrews dream. Bernadette Dunne is the best narrator. I love her voices and she gives these stories so much life. I hope we get 100 more.

For Duck's Sake is the 37th book in the Meg Langslow mystery series by Donna Andrews. Meg is supervising the digging of a duck pond on her brother Rob's property and avoiding the chaos of the Mutt March that is being planned at her house. The calm afternoon is disturbed as a worker uncovers a dead body on the property. Meg is enlisted by Chief Burke to help search for local missing persons to help identify the victim. Iris Rafferty, the former owner of Rob and Delaney's home and current resident of the mother-in-law sweet on the property, goes missing during the search. Meg must help determine if she is hiding due to the investigation or if she was taken.

I really enjoy this series and now read all 37 books! The Langslow family is full of fascinating and eclectic characters. One of my favorite parts of these books is the big focus on animals. There is always something wild happening at their home lol. The Mutt March was particularly entertaining. I enjoyed getting to know the neighbor, Iris Rafferty, more in this book. Meg is a great protagonist. She is smart and dedicated to her family and all of their shenanigans. This was another really interesting mystery with some good twists. This series is an auto buy for me and I will happily read 37 more. I know I am always in for a great time with Meg and the crew.

I just completed an audio reread after being approved for the ALC.. I absolutely adore the audiobooks for this series. Bernadette Dunne does such a great job with the narration.

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the ALC in exchange for an honest review.

Meg Langslow is once again doing what she does best: being the calm center of a storm made entirely of bones, bulldozers, and barking. In “For Duck’s Sake,” book thirty-freaking-seven in Donna Andrews’ delightfully unhinged cozy series, Meg flees her own house — which has been swallowed alive by Caerphilly’s inaugural Mutt March — and tries to find some peace next door at her brother’s. But of course, peace is a myth. The duck pond dig site promptly coughs up a decades-old corpse. And Meg? She picks up a shovel and gets to work. Not literally, but spiritually.

This isn’t a fresh murder, which honestly feels like emotional progress for Caerphilly. What we do get is a cold case that snowballs into buried lies, secret real estate weirdness, and a suspiciously mobile elderly woman who vanishes the second a skeleton shows up. Oh, and did I mention the bunker? Because yes. There’s a bunker. And possibly drugs. And definitely every old missing persons case in town now being dredged up for reexamination like some kind of bureaucratic séance. Chief Burke is trying to hold it together, but let’s be real — Meg’s the one pulling files, grilling locals, and trying not to scream into her coffee.

Meanwhile, her actual house is a four-legged fever dream. The Mutt March has taken over her property and her peace of mind. Hundreds of dogs from across the region. A vet with the self-control of a rescue puppy. Prowlers possibly targeting dogs for fighting rings. It’s a logistical nightmare and a moral panic wrapped in fur. The Mutt March feels like if “The Great British Bake Off” were about under-socialized rescue animals instead of cakes — charming, chaotic, and about to change the world for the better.

This isn’t the funniest entry in the series — the chaos is slower, the jokes a little softer. But it still works. The cozy’s cozy. The characters are charming. The town feels like the kind of place where a cold case, a city budget being due, and a dog costume contest could all happen on the same day. This one feels like a deep breath between disasters. And Meg, patron saint of never getting a day off, somehow survives it all without adopting another dog. That’s not self-control. That’s Olympic-tier mental discipline.

Is it the best in the series? No. But it’s solid. The mystery keeps things moving. The town lore expands. And Meg is still out here juggling a cold case, hundreds of dogs, a rogue bunker, and the emotional weight of knowing she will never have a normal week. I love her for it.

Whodunity Award: For Not Adopting a Puppy While Digging Up a Skeleton and Finding a Bunker in a Town That Runs on Dog Fur and Gossip

Huge thanks to Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for early access to the audiobook — and for letting me tag along on yet another Caerphilly mystery, complete with dogs, ducks, mysterious bunkers, and the growing suspicion that Meg’s notebook might be the only thing keeping this town from imploding.