From the multi-award-winning Andrews, past master of laugh-out-loud avian titling, Round Up the Usual Peacocks puts Meg Langslow on the trail of three separate cold cases when a member of her techie nephew's true-crime podcast team has an unfortunate accident that could have been attempted murder (40,000-copy first printing). In the New York Times best-selling Childs's A Dark and Stormy Tea, tea maven Theodosia Browning is approaching St. Philips Graveyard one rain-wrought night when she witnesses the murder of a friend's daughter and immediately starts investigating--never mind the serial killer loose in Charleston. In the Edgar Award-winning Krueger's Fox Creek, Ojibwe healer Henry Meloux protects a stranger named Dolores Morriseau who had sought his guidance but now finds herself pursued by hunters, with Cork O'Connor hot on their trail; his wife, Meloux's great-niece, is with the endangered Dolores (150,000-copy first printing). Author of the "Hugo Marston" mystery series, English journalist-turned-Texas prosecutor Pryor launches a new series with Die Around Sundown, set in World War II Paris, where Det. Henri Lefort has just a few days to solve the murder of a German major at the Louvre Museum (40,000-copy first printing). In Bark to the Future, latest in Quinn's doggedly funny New York Times best-selling series, PI Bernie Little and his devoted canine, Chet, try to figure out what happened to the woman who reigned as prom queen of Bernie's high school class and now seems to have vanished (75,000-copy first printing). With Quarter to Midnight, the New York Times best-selling Rose takes us to New Orleans, where police officer-turned-private eye Molly Sutton is tasked with helping a steamy-hot young chef prove that his NOPD dad's death was not suicide. Former director of the Wollongong Writers Festival, Scrivenor delivers the booming-big debut Dirt Creek, in which D.S. Sarah Michaels investigates the disappearance of 12-year-old Esther as she walked home from her rural Australian school even as Esther's classmates offer their own insights (150,000-copy first printing). In Schaffhausen's Long Gone, Det. Annalisa Vega recoups from having turned in her ex-cop father for murder by investigating a detective's suspicious death, which leads her to a slick car salesman trying to charm her best friend (40,000-copy first printing). Walker's popular hero, Bruno, chief of police in the Dordogne village of St. Denis, faces Spanish nationalists with plans To Kill a Troubadour after release of "Song for Catalonia" by a local folk music group.

Bestseller Andrews's enjoyable 31st Meg Langslow mystery (after 2021's The Twelve Jays of Christmas) finds blacksmith Meg, a bridesmaid at her brother Rob's upcoming wedding, tasked with, among many other things, obtaining nonmolting peacocks to grace the reception. Meg's relieved to delegate bridal chores when she gets the opportunity to revert to her amateur sleuth role and focus on why a Virginia Crime Time podcaster was almost the victim of a hit-and-run after discussing two local cold cases: a 26-year-old cheating scandal at Caerphilly College's business school that led to a professor's death by suicide and a talented singer's decades-old disappearance. Unsure which case triggered the attack, Meg investigates both. It soon becomes clear that someone doesn't want Meg snooping about in the past, but is it the B-school blackmailer or the person who silenced the singer? Meg must rely on her wits; her Caerphilly, Va., work connections; and a multitude of relatives to unravel the twisted web of lies surrounding each mystery. Quirky characters match the madcap plot. Readers seeking whopping good escapism will be satisfied. Agent: Ellen Geiger, Frances Goldin Literary. (Aug.)

Meg Langslow's nephew Kevin comes to her for help when his friend Casey is almost run over by a car. Casey and Kevin have been producing a true-crime podcast, and they believe the attack was the work of someone upset by one of the episodes. Thrilled that it will get her out of the increasingly outlandish preparations for her brother's upcoming wedding, Meg agrees. The three most likely cases covered on the podcast involved a recently released ex-con, a long-ago scandal at the Caerphilly College business school, and the disappearance of a promising young singer. With the local police chief investigating the ex-con, Meg concentrates her efforts on the scandal and the missing singer. Not above a bit of clandestine breaking and entering, she manages to anger at least two groups of people that mean to do her harm, but she perseveres--all the while trying to ignore her mother's wedding concerns as well as dodging some marauding peacocks. Cozy fans will love this charming entry in the long-running series.