Antiques dealer Abigail Timberlake Washburn outbids several people to buy a birdcage shaped like the Taj Mahal. With the cage is a Mynah bird named Monet. At first, Abigail cares more for the cage than the bird, but she soon grows to like the bird and is upset when Monet is birdnapped. The kidnappers demand a real Monet in exchange for the feathered version. Abigail doesn't have the real Monet, but the kidnappers soon strike again, this time kidnapping Abigail's mother, Mozella. Abigail works frantically to figure out what the kidnappers are really looking for as well as where they have hidden her mother.

This is a very funny book. Readers may be laughing so hard they may not notice that the book is long on humor and short on plot. The "mystery" of Abigail's mother and bird being kidnapped is ignored for long stretches as Abigail encounters one eccentric character after another. While the regular characters of C.J. and the Rob-Bob's are always amusing (although jokes about Bob's cooking are overdone), minor characters such as FBI agents that Abigail nicknames Moldy and Scowler, seem thrown in the book just for the pun of it. I'd like to see less emphasis on the eccentric characters and more emphasis on the plot.

This is a light but amusing series.