School Library Journal Review
McCrumb resurrects the 1960s through the planning of a twentieth high-school reunion for the Class of '66, complete with music, clothing styles, and school activities of the era. While reunion preparations are taking place, someone sets into motion the systematic terrorization of Peggy Muryan, a folk singer who buys a big home in Hamelin, Tennessee, with the intention of writing new material and making a comeback. But before she can compose a note, her dog is hanged, butchered, and left with a military insignia carved into his skin. A cryptic postcard leads to the discovery of the body of a young teen who resembles the singer as she appears on her best-known record album. The writing is enlivened with slices of humorous dialogue, unusual characters, and a fast-paced plot. For those discovering the fun of reading mysteries, this a captivating choice. --Pam Spencer, Jefferson Sci-Tech, Alexandria, VA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
McCrumb surpasses lauded earlier novels, including 1988 Edgar winner Bimbos of the Death Sun , with this inventive mystery. Sheriff Spencer Arrowood remembers Peggy Muryan, a newcomer to Hamelin, Tenn., as a moderately popular folksinger of the 1960s. Hoping to compose fresh songs in the quiet town, Peggy instead attracts messages from a secret killer. Arrowood and Deputy Joe LeDonne answer her call for help and the latter, a Vietnam veteran, recognizes descriptions of the war's horrors in the threats. Peggy's dog is killed, and later a girl with a strong resemblance to her, but it's a long, suspenseful struggle for the sheriff and his right-hand man to learn the terrible, astonishing facts in the case. A superior mystery, the book is also a masterful drama of lives shaped by traumatic events, as McCrumb bares the psyches of her characters. Mystery Book Club selection. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
McCrumb's hard-cover debut--a patently obvious case of misdirection--assigns the sheriff of Hamelin, Tennessee, Spencer Arrowood, the task of finding high-school student Rosemary Winstead's murderer, who just might be the person who similarly mangled a sheep and a dog and then carved them up with a Vietnam troop insignia. Could this madman also be the person who is hounding new resident Peggy Muryan, a folk-singer popular in the 60's, by sending her taunting postcards? LeDonne, Spencer's Vietnam vet deputy, disproves the Vietnam connection, while Martha, his dispatcher and fellow-graduate (20 years back) from the local high school, finagles him into working on their reunion. Peggy, meanwhile, keeps getting those cards, and they seem to implicate her former singing partner, Travis Perdue--except that Travis was a Vietnam casualty, an MIA. Could he be back? Why would he kill nice, young Rosemary Winstead? Who else had a motive? The murky resolution here finds pretty Peggy taking matters into her own hands--to Spencer's horror. The author's style is better than her content, though the reunion stuff, while hardly fresh, is nicely handled. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
