Synopses & Reviews
Sheriff Spencer Arrowood keeps the peace in his small Tennessee town most of the time. Every once in a while, though, something goes wrong.
When 1960s folksinger Peggy Muryan moves to town seeking solitude and a career comeback, and she receives a postcard with a threatening message, her idyll is shattered. Then a local girl who looks like Peggy vanishes without a trace.
Although she was once famous, Peggy has no fondness for the old times. Those days are best left forgotten for Spencer Arrowood, too. But sometimes the past can't rest, and those who try to forget it are doomed to relive it....
Review
"There are mysteries that give you a damn good read—and there are novels that give you that and a whole lot more. McCrumb's first hardback release delivers on a whole set of promises. The centerpiece of the novel is the reunion of the class of 1966. Along with the reappraisals and reminiscences that usually accompany such an event are the unresolved issues of the 1960"s—especially Vietnam. The war plays a crucial role in the lives of these characters even though for most it hovers on the periphery of consciousness. The mystery revolves around a newcomer to town—a folksinger whose star rose briefly in the 1960"s and who plans to stage a comeback from her quiet retreat. But threatening notes and violence disturb her country idyll. Artfully mixed with the tightening twang of suspense are the slower, gentler rhythms of small-town life. McCrumb depicts these with humor, affection, and without nostalgia." Reviewed by Daniel Weiss, Virginia Quarterly Review (Copyright 2006 Virginia Quarterly Review)
About the Author
Sharyn McCrumb is an internationally acclaimed New York Times bestselling author whose work has been honored with all five of the major awards in crime fiction (Edgar, Agatha, Anthony, Macavity, and Nero)--and two Best Appalachian Novel awards. She is the creator of the esteemed Ballad Novel series, the first of which--If Ever I Return, Pretty Peggy-O--was a New York Times Notable Book. The most recent installment in her satirical mystery series featuring forensic anthropologist Elizabeth MacPherson is If I'd Killed Him When I Met Him....
Ms. McCrumb lives in the Virginia Blue Ridge Mountains with her husband David and their two younger children, less than a hundred miles from the Smoky Mountain valley where her ancestors settled in 1790.