History Literature / MegLangslowMysteries

* AllForNothing: By the beginning of the book, two characters in ''[[We'll Always Have Parrots]]'' have spent decades in hiding without needing to.

* #6: ''Owls Well That Ends Well'' (2005)

* DeadMansChest: In ''Owls Well That Ends Well'' the body of Gordon-You-Thief is found locked in an old trunk at a giant yard sale.

* TheDividual: ''No Nest for the Wicket" features two realtors who are pretty similar in appearance and personality, share all of their scenes, and are both named Suzie. Other characters call them either "the Suzies" or "the clones."
* DumbwaiterRide: In ''Owl's Well That Ends Well" Meg uses the extra-large dumbwaiter in her new home to eavesdrop on the police as they conduct on-site interviews in her dining room. Trouble comes when her nephew and a friend discover the shaft and jump onto the top of the dumbwaiter; in the end they get caught but Meg doesn't. She uses the trick again in a much later book.
* DyingTown: Clay County, by "The Hen of the Baskervilles." The killer's MotiveRant mentions that the county is "dying by inches" due to their economy drying up and prominent citizens repeatedly being arrested for murder. By the end of the book, the entire sheriff's department is about to be laid off [[{{Nepotism}} except for the sheriff and three deputies who are related to the mayor or the sheriff]]. And they're only being paid to work part-time.

* AbsurdlyYouthfulMother: In "No Nest for the Wicket," Merg looks up some photos of MayorPain George Pruitt’s ancestors and observes a picture of one woman glaring at her husband shortly after the birth of their fourteenth child (she went on to have three more). She notes that the woman would have been too young to babysit by modern standards when she had her first child [[spoiler:Possibly subverted with the later reveal that the picture and accompanying news stories are fakes made to prank the Pruitts, and it isn't even clear if that couple existed.]]

* #31: ''Round Up the Usual Peacocks'' (announced for August 2022)

* FamilialFoe: The Pruitt and Dingley families ({{Corrupt Hick}}s who run Caerphilly and Clay counties, at least initially) both contain multiple unpleasant, if not outright criminal, members who Meg argues with or investigates. Downplayed, though, as few of them seem to take notice of their relatives' past antagonism with Meg even as the new family members become antagonists.

* AbsurdlyYouthfulMother: In "No Nest for the Wicket," Merg looks up some photos of MayorPain George Pruitt’s ancestors and observes a picture of one woman glaring at her husband shortly after the birth of their fourteenth child (she went on to have three more). She notes that the woman would have been too young to babysit by modern standards when she had her first child.

* PregnantBadass: Meg Langslow in ''Stork Raving Mad''

* EvilPoacher: The victim of ''The Penguin Who Knew Too Much'' is a zoo owner suspected of illegally letting trophy hunters kill his (endangered) animals while their trapped in cages and don't have a chance to escape. Even the local hunters view this practice with utter contempt. [[spoiler:In a twist, it turns out the victim was innocent and was killed when he caught the real poacher in the act of stealing one of his animals.]]

** Possibly best-expressed in ''The Falcon Always Wings Twice'' with her free-range wool. The sheep (belonging to neighbour Seth Early) are so free-range Meg has occasionally found them napping in her basement and drinking from her downstairs toilets; while Meg isn't sure about the sheep's opinion on the soothing music and aromatherapy incense Rose Noire insists on using during the shearing, they appreciate the full-body massages enough that after being sheared they'll head to the end of the line for another shearing.

* ComicBookTime / WebcomicTime: Precise dates and too detailed references to any current events are avoided, and computers and cell phones have the capabilities they had when respective books were written, but from the ageing of the twins, less than ten years passed in the books for almost 20 years of RealLife, while most adult and senior characters apparently didn't age at all. Especially noticeable with her grandfather, who's been "well into his nineties" since before the boys were born.

** One only long-time readers will pick up on: ''Lord of the Rings''(#19) introduces a new Caerphilly resident, Ragnar Ragnarssen, a veteran of a half-dozen heavy metal bands. In ''Toucan Keep a Secret'' (#23) Meg visits him at his mansion, and reminisces about the changes from when she visited the previous resident. She's actually referring to the events of ''Swan for the money'' (#11), where the same property was the scene for both the rose show and the murders [[spoiler: not to mention the owner of the property being the murderer, which is how Ragnar got the place!]]. Interestingly, this is also a {{Retcon}}, as Ragnar is mentioned (though not named) in ''The Nightingale Before Christmas'' as having bought a local farm and built his gothic mansion on it.

To date, the following titles in the series have been either been published or are scheduled:

* ''Murder with Peacocks''
* ''Murder with Puffins''
* ''Revenge of the Wrought Iron Flamingos''
* ''Crouching Buzzard, Leaping Loon''
* ''We'll Always Have Parrots''
* ''Owls Well That Ends Well''
* ''No Nest for the Wicket''
* ''The Penguin Who Knew Too Much''
* ''Cockatiels at Seven''
* ''Six Geese A-Slaying''
* ''Swan For The Money''
* ''Stork Raving Mad''
* ''The Real Macaw''
* ''Some Like It Hawk''
* ''The Hen of the Baskervilles''
* ''Duck the Halls''
* "A Christmas Rescue" (short story set between ''Duck the Halls'' and ''The Good, the Bad and the Emus''; sometimes published in later edition of the latter, as it contains major spoilers for that book.)
* ''The Good, the Bad and the Emus''
* "A Christmas Trifle" (short story available in the anthology Chesapeake Crimes: homicidal holidays)
* ''The Nightingale Before Christmas''
* ''Lord of the Wings''
* ''Die Like an Eagle''
* ''Gone Gull''
* ''How The Finch Stole Christmas!''
* ''Toucan Keep a Secret''
* ''A Murder Hatched'' (Compilation containing ''Murder with Peacocks'' and ''Murder with Puffins'')
* "Night Shades" (Short story available in an anthology)
* "Birthday Dinner" (Short story available in an anthology)
* ''Lark! The Herald Angels Sing''
* ''Terns of Endearment''
* ''Owl Be Home for Christmas''
* ''The Falcon Always Wings Twice''
* ''The Gift of the Magpie''
* ''Murder Most Fowl'' (August 2021)
* ''The Twelve Jays of Christmas'' (October 2021)
* ''Round Up the Usual Peacocks'' (August 2022)

* MorallyBankruptBanker: The "Evil Lender," First Progressive Financial, in ''The Real Macaw'' and ''Some Like It Hawk''. One of the darker and probably the most murderous BigBad in the series.

* WhamLine: Aside from the obligatory OnceAnEpisode surprise reveal about the identities of murderers and other criminals, "The Penguin Who Knew Too Much," has this gem, when Dr. Blake explains his suspicious behavior of [[spoiler:taking Meg and her dad's wineglasses.]]

* JurisdictionFriction: This happens in ''Hen of the Baskervilles'' when a body ends up splayed across the county line of Caerphilly County and Clay County. Clay County is very much unequipped to do a proper investigation of the murder, but wants jurisdiction anyway. Meg and the Caerphilly County police chief manage to convince them to give Clay County to give the case to them by insinuating that the cost of the investigation will be astronomical, though Clay County still insists on having one of their people on the case as an observer, who turns out to be an interfering idiot. [[spoiler:The twist in this case is that he's not simply an interfering idiot, he also happens to be the murderer.]]

* MistakenForGay: Michael by Meg in the very first book. It's easily deduced by savvy readers (or anyone who's [[EarlyInstallmentWeirdness read other books]] in the series!) but in the narrative, it's clear how Meg came to that conclusion, including Michael actually going along with the ruse in public in order to fend off a group of predatory, bitchy bridesmaids. Michael trying to get Meg alone to tell her he's straight and ask her out, only to interrupted by the discovery of yet another dead body or attempted murder, is a RunningGag in the book.

* [[HorrorDoesntSettleForSimpleTuesday Mystery Doesn't Settle For Simple Tuesday]]: played with; seven of the twenty-nine books take place around Christmas. A further eight revolve around some kind of holiday or festival, which will turn out to be integral to the mystery itself or a background plot [[note]]Murder with ''Peacocks'' (three weddings), ''Revenge of the Wrought-Iron Flamingos'' (week-long Civil War re-enactment), ''We'll Always Have Parrots'' (sci-fi convention), ''Swan for the Money'' (Rose-growers flower show), ''Some Like It Hawk'' (Caerphilly days, a colonial-era festival AND the book takes place over the Fourth of July long weekend), ''The Hen of the Baskervilles'' (the Un-Fair, a kind of alternate State fair after the official one gets cancelled), ''Lord of the Wings'' (Halloween), ''The Falcon Always Wings Twice'' (a medieval fair).[[/note]]

* NotInFrontOfTheParrot: In ''The Real Macaw'' the titular parrot fingers a previously-unsuspected character - not by repeating any incriminating dialogue, but by [[spoiler: repeating his owner's name in tones of passion, and in [[ReallyGetsAround one of his lover's]] distinctive New England accent [[note]]the series takes place in Virginia[[/note]]. Interestingly, the murderer and her victim actually joked about this trope pre-murder, so she bought a similar bird and swapped them. Unfortunately the macaw was a rare species that couldn't be found at the pet store, so credit card records of the substitute bird's purchase became part of the evidence against her.]]

** Justified; in the first book, Meg mentions she lives three hours drive away from Yorktown, where the first and third books take place - and that Eileen has just moved to her about-to-be-husband's farm, which is three hours away in another direction. In the fourth book, Meg moves to Caerphilly (where she will remain for the rest of the series), which is described as an hour's drive north of Yorktown. So yeah, given that Eileen already has a baby by the third book, is later mentioned as having several more, and lives between two and four hours drive away from Meg, you sort of understand why they don't get together much.

** A heartwarming example: in ''Revenge of the Wrought-Iron Flamingos'' (book three), Meg's mentor Faulk is an exhibitor at the Civil War festival, and Tad, a computer programmer friend of hers with a hot temper is one of the suspects (and so is Faulk, since they're a couple). They both return for the medieval fair at the centre of ''The Falcon Always Wings Twice'' (book twenty-seven), and Meg absently mentions that they're married. Also, Tad's temper makes him a suspect again.

* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: in ''Murder with Peacocks'' - wait, Meg's parents are divorced? Michael's not Meg's boyfriend/husband - he's ''gay''??? (Both situations are resolved by book two).

* BewareOfViciousDog: Spike, aka [[InSeriesNickname 'The Small Evil One']] - Meg Langslow's dog that her mother-in-law forces on her after she turns out to be allergic to him. He turns out to be surprisingly gentle toward and protective of Meg's children once they're born, though. But ''only'' to them! Totally subverted with Rob's Irish setter, Tinkerbell, who once tried so desperately to make friends with a burglar that he dropped his gear and ran away!

* {{Bridezilla}}: In the first book, ''Murder with Peacocks'', Meg has to deal with being maid of honor and therefore de facto wedding planner for three of these at once, albeit different kinds: her brother Robb is marrying an entitled, snobby bitch; her best friend Elaine is a sweet and utterly disorganized [[TheDitz ditz]] who is more than a little untethered from reality; and her own mother, who genuinely considers every relative in the immediate and not-so-immediate vicinity her rightful servant with no reason for living than arranging the world as she wants it. It's telling that in later years, Meg turns out to be so burned by the whole experience that she refuses to marry Michael unless he agrees to elope.
* ButtMonkey: Clay County seems to exist to contrast with our heroes' hometown of Caerphilly. Clay is smaller, poorer, saddled with corrupt politicians and police. Caerphilly has a state of the art zoo with a rich patron, Clay had a glorified petting zoo. Caerphilly has a Chief of Police with big city homicide experience and access to a trained crime scene processor, Clay has good ol' boys who don't know the first thing about preserving evidence. Clay is run-down and hopeless, and seems to get little sympathy from their better-off neighbors.

* CharacterisationMarchesOn: Most of Meg's relatives who are portrayed as bumbling wannabes who try too hard in the earlier books become actually good at their chosen jobs/hobbies in the later ones, ([[BunnyEarsLawyer even when they have their own methods]].) Most notably her mother's attempts at interior decoration actually becoming classy and more or less within the budget, her cousin Horace gradually becoming less dependent on his gorilla costume as he grows in competence and confidence as a forensics expert, and her dad becoming an actual medical examiner for the police.
** Meg's inclination to deliberately go sticking her nose in potentially dangerous situations goes down after she has the twins.

** Inverted with Rob and Rose Noire; early on, Caerphilly's notorious housing shortage sees them move into rooms in Meg and Michael's three-story farmhouse, in Rob's case without telling anyone he was doing so. Rob moves out somewhere in the mid-teens books (mostly because he gains a steady girlfriend and eventual fiancee with her own place), but as of ''Owl Be Home'' Rose Noire is still around. However, Meg really appreciates their help with their ever-expanding animal population (often dropped off without permission) and eventually the twins.

** Played straight, however, with the visiting Spanish playwright in ''Stork Raving Mad''. The couple are already hosting hordes of drama students and computer programmers thanks to a college heating failure, and they add a number of Spanish students to make him feel at home. He turns out to be a [[LifeOfTheParty party animal]] who is boisterous and controversial, cooks seafood Meg is allergic to, and rehearses loudly at all hours of the day and night. Which is not really a restful atmosphere for a woman eight and a half months pregnant with twins. That's not even counting her house subsequently becoming a murder scene. Notably, Meg never mentions having a houseguest who isn't related to her ever again.

* LikeRealityUnlessNoted: The books seem to take place more-or-less in the real world, with reference to real world television series such as ''WesternAnimation/ThomasTheTankEngine'', but are set in the fictional town of Caerphilly, Virginia. Although most of the wildlife descriptions and factoids throughout the books are reasonably accurate, the gull species Dr. Blake is trying to find in ''Gone Gull'' appear to be entirely fictional, and would have been a major discovery in RealLife.