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Sharyn McCrumb ListingsIf you cannot find what you want on this page, then please use our search feature to search all our listings. Click on Title to view full description
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Sharyn McCrumb Missing Susan
Ballantine Books 1992 0345379454 / 9780345379450 Mass Market Paperback Very Good
0345379454 6.9 x 4.2 x 0.7 inches Book Description Edgar Award winner Sharyn McCrumb brings you her sixth Elizabeh MacPherson mystery novel. The unsinkable Elizabeth is on tour of England's most famous murder sites, when Rowan Rover, the group leader, is quietly asked to commit murder. He does, of course, but not without misgivings--not the least of which is having Elizabeth MacPherson, canny observer and all-around murder spoiler, on his tail... "Sharyn McCrunb is definitely a rising star in the New Golden Age of mystery fiction. I look forward to reading her for a long time to come." Elizabeth Peters From the Publisher I particularly enjoy mysteries that allow me to play the armchair traveler, following along as the detective visits famous sites or interesting corners of the world. Sharyn McCrumb's MISSING SUSAN is one of the best examples of this kind of mystery. In MISSING SUSAN, Elizabeth MacPherson, forensic anthropologist and sleuth, decides to go on a tour of England's most famous murder sites. She isn't aware that Rowan Rover, the tour guide and Jack the Ripper expert, has been hired to kill a tour member -- the obnoxious young heiress Susan Cohen. Throughout the story, we are treated to a travelogue of England's more gruesome tourist spots, as well as Sharyn McCrumb's dryly humorous prose. MISSING SUSAN inspired me to take the Jack the Ripper tour myself -- and although I didn't encounter any murders other than those of Jack the Ripper, the atmosphere was decidedly more intriguing due to this book. --Malinda Lo, Editorial Assistant
Price:
3.00 USD
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Sharyn McCrumb The PMS Outlaws: An Elizabeth MacPherson Novel
Ballantine Books 2000 0345382315 / 9780345382313 Bookclub Edition Fine near fine
0345382315 9.4 x 6.5 x 0.8 inches Amazon.com Forensic anthropologist Elizabeth MacPherson (Highland Laddie Gone, Lovely in Her Bones) is dealing with death, but not at her usual scientific remove. She's checked herself into Cherry Hill Psychiatric Hospital in an attempt to come to terms with her husband's recent death. Meanwhile her brother Bill, a Virginia lawyer, is attempting to soothe the ire of his partner, A.P. Hill, by purchasing a Tara-like mansion in the hopes of attracting a better class of client. Unfortunately, the mansion comes complete with a resident character, one Jack Dolan, the 90-year-old former owner who refuses to leave. But Hill is uninterested in Bill's nesting efforts. She's intent on understanding a former law-school rival's sudden embarkation on a life of crime. P.J. Purdue has broken a client out of prison and the pair, dubbed "the PMS Outlaws" by the press, are terrorizing all manner of male chauvinists. They seduce the men, convince them to disrobe and submit to handcuffing (with promises of tantalizing escapades to come), and then flee with the dupe's clothes and wallet. It's amusing in the abstract, until Purdue begins using A.P.'s name as an alias and the cops come knocking on her door. The two narratives both feature deeply cynical women and tedious moralizations on the unfairness of using physical beauty as the standard by which to judge women. Unfortunately, McCrumb's attempts to link them are largely unconvincing. Elizabeth's story merges feebly with Bill's when a fellow patient, a former cop, recognizes a picture of the house and hints at dark secrets in its owner's past. Elizabeth recruits her cousin Geoffrey, the most interesting character in this outing, to unearth what he can about Dolan. Securely ensconced in Bill's new offices as an interior decorator-cum-sleuth, Geoffrey faxes amusingly arch updates to Elizabeth, a welcome distraction for the reader from her grief, which feels clumsy and out of place. The PMS Outlaws flounders in an uncomfortable net of cozy mystery, social commentary, and introspection. Let's hope McCrumb soon returns to the form that captivated readers of her Appalachian novels (She Walks These Hills, The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter, The Rosewood Casket). When she's on top of her game, she's absolutely unbeatable. --Kelly Flynn From Publishers Weekly This mild-mannered mystery, number nine in the Elizabeth MacPherson series from versatile writer McCrumb (Bimboes of the Death Sun; If I'd Killed Him When I Met Him), is a humorous, fast-paced story. When we join MacPherson, she has just checked into the Cherry Hill Psychiatric Hospital to deal with depression brought on by the death of her husband. Meanwhile, struggling Virginia lawyer Bill MacPherson, Elizabeth's brother, has purchased an old mansion for his law firm's upscale office. The mansion comes with a catch: the elderly man who originally built the house (with apparently dubious funds) is still living on the sun porch. As Bill works out the real estate deal, his law partner, A.P. Powell, disappears to chase clues about the newly infamous PMS Outlaws, who have been stealing money from men and leaving them handcuffed in compromising positions. While the novel's many eccentric characters never fail to entertain, the mystery of the old man is little more than a distraction, both for the reader and for Elizabeth. As for the PMS Outlaws, they are completely transparent in their motivations: they want to get money and cut men down to size. What keeps the pages turning is the desire to see Elizabeth and Powell find their way out of their obsessions and back to their respective lives. McCrumb's gift is for making us care whether they do. Mystery Guild main selection; 6-city author tour. (Sept.) Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Price:
2.25 USD
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Sharyn McCrumb The Songcatcher: A Novel
Dutton Adult 2001 0525944885 / 9780525944881 Bookclub Edition Fine near fine
0525944885 9.4 x 6.2 x 1.1 inches From Publishers Weekly Skipping back and forth in time from the 18th to the late 20th century, and drawing on her own family history, McCrumb tells two stories in her appealing new novel, one heading toward, the other returning to, the Appalachians. In the present-day sections, 83-year-old John Walker is slowly dying in the eastern Tennessee town where he has lived most of his life, while his estranged daughter, Linda Walker better known as the country singer Lark McCourry is trying to make it home before he dies. She is also trying to recollect an old song she heard once at a family gathering, a song she hopes will round out her forthcoming album. But heading home, Lark is downed in the mountains in a small plane and trapped inside it. Meanwhile, Malcolm McCourry, one of Lark's maternal ancestors, narrates the story of his life, from the day in 1751 when English seamen kidnapped him at the age of nine from the Scottish isle Islay to the close of his life in the mountains of western North Carolina. Always he carries with him a song he learned aboard ship, which is then passed down to his descendants, each one remembering it at a crucial moment. McCrumb, an award-winning crime and mystery writer, has mixed historic and contemporary plots with success in the past (notably in She Walks These Hills and other novels in her Ballad series; some characters from the Ballad series reappear here), and she does so again, letting the past inform the present and generating a good deal of suspense in a novel that is not properly a mystery. Readers may come to feel that Lark McCourry, unlike the tune-miners looking to stake a copyright claim to every mountain song they hear, is the real songcatcher, the rightful inheritor of her family's music. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc. From Library Journal The statement on McCrumb's web site (www.sharynmccrumb.com) that her new book "will be Roots with a tune" is not quite accurate. While it is about many generations of a Southern family and a song that is passed down from one to the next, it is in no other way comparable to a masterpiece like Alex Haley's Roots. In alternating chapters, we read of the kidnapped Scottish boy who brings the song to America and his adventures on the frontier, countered with the travails of his modern-day folk singer descendant, whose plane crashes on her way back to her Appalachian home to track down the song. Interspersed with these are distantly relevant story lines involving a hiker trapped in the mountains and the ghost of another dead folk singer who visits with the living demanding sole proprietary rights to the song. McCrumb (The PMS Outlaws; The Ballad of Frankie Silver) based the story on her own family's history, but the sections that take place in contemporary times are more enjoyable than the interruptions from the past. Still, given McCrumb's popularity, most public libraries should consider. - Lisa Bier, Mashantucket Pequot Research Lib., CT Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Price:
2.25 USD
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