The appeal of the Meg Langslow series is immediately obvious–humor! Meg is a blacksmith (though this doesn’t usually play a major role in the books) with a large and eccentric family. Add in what seems like an ever-increasing number of animals, as well as the occasional dead body, and the result is a series of very funny books.

The other thing strength of this series is theme–each book brings in some interesting event or activity, from weddings to video games to craft fairs to weaponsmithing. I once watched Donna Andrews online having a discussion with a group of writers, and she said that she likes to take some hobby or interest that people get passionate about and work with it, because when people get really obsessed with something, it creates a lot of opportunities for humor. (Something to that effect.) It works–plus, now I know what “passementerie” is.

Going back to humor–clearly there are different sorts of humor. These books tend toward a matter-of-fact sort of humor. Not dark, and not overly silly either because Meg is a sensible sort of person.

Although the family relationships develop over the course of the series, the mysteries generally don’t stretch past the individual book, so it shouldn’t be too much of a problem if you read them out of sequence. There are thirty-four books in the series so far, and I’m looking forward to the next two.