Nick and Peter's wedding and all the ensuing madness and mystery. Loved it! ( )

Birds of a Feather by Nicole Kimberling is the fifth installment in the quirky and very popular Bellingham mystery series set in Bellingham, Washington. In this book, the mystery sometimes takes a secondary role to the hilariously chaotic attempts of Peter and Nick to carry out their wedding plans. However, the story more than makes up for this with complex, realistic, and humorous interactions between Peter and Nick, the two sets of in-laws with each other and Peter, and Peter with Nick’s old friends. The secondary characters are vivid and often very funny. There is a delightful subplot involving Peter’s attempts to figure out the subject of Nick’s latest abstract landscape; what he eventually finds out is as funny as it is unexpected.

The story opens with Peter stressing out over his upcoming wedding to Nick. Not only is he struggling with a major catering glitch, but he and Nick face potential legal problems involving the grown sons of Nick’s previous lover from whom he inherited his house and wealth. Peter needs to settle down and write his wedding vows before the ceremony. However, true to his inquisitive nature, he gets sidetracked into a strange mystery involving an illegally killed bald eagle. Meanwhile, Nick’s old lover begins acting inappropriately through the wedding preparations as if attempting to steal Nick back.

Val for AReCafe ( )