It was a double - two books in one package - the file was open. So much for my rule about back-to-back books by the same author. Actually, that may have been one of my mother's rules from when I was much, much younger. I was not allowed to check out two books by the same author on our weekly expeditions to the library. I think I was also required to check out a non-fiction book - I'm not sure I always read those.
The story was ok. The opening was annoying: following hard on the heels of the weddings of peacock fame, Meg and the not gay professor slip away to a remote island off the coast of Maine for a few days of privacy - and find all her dear family there ahead of them. So Michael, the professor, is bunked in with other single men and she sleeps on the couch.
Then the villain of the piece is murdered and the murderer makes a couple of good tries at Meg and Michael. After all, everyone wanted the villain dead and they were just too nosy.
It is a good thing that I have already read later books in the series, because otherwise this would have been the last one I'd have touched. The puffin connection with the story is tenuous at best, so Ms. Andrews tried to beef it up by making her chapter titles familiar quotations -- with the word "puffin" inserted for the key word. It wasn't enough to make me quit reading, but I did put it away in irritation several times. Incredibly annoying. In Peacocks, she used date references to the wedding calendars - that worked. This was amazingly stupid. I also know that she gets on to more inventive book titles. Where could she have gone? Murder with Penguins? Murder with Parakeets? How many "P" birds are there?
I suppose the writer of "cozy" mysteries has some latitude concerning general silliness. So here we go again. There is no question in my mind that this is a cozy mystery, but there was no knitting and no cats - maybe it was the birds.
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