IF EVER I RETURN, PRETTY PEGGY-O

by Sharyn McCrumb ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 1990

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.

Pub Date: April 1, 1990

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Scribners

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1990

Categories: FICTION