If Ever I Return, Pretty Peggy-O

Written by Sharyn McCrumb

Narrated by Sally Darling

Written in grease pencil on a tourist postcard, the lyrics are winsome and innocent. But for famous folk singer Peggy Muryan, who has moved recently to the rural community of Hamelin, Tennessee, they are a chilling reminder of a troubled moment in her past.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
• Release date: Oct 19, 2012
• ISBN: 9781470333522

Sharyn McCrumb

Sharyn McCrumb is the New York Times bestselling author of the acclaimed Ballad novels. She has received numerous honors for her work, including the Mary Frances Hobson Prize for Southern Literature, the AWA Book of the Year, and Notable Books in both The New York Times and Los Angeles Times. She was also named a Virginia Woman of History for Achievement in Literature. She lives and writes in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains, fewer than one hundred miles from where her family settled in 1790.

Reviews for If Ever I Return, Pretty Peggy-O

[delphimo_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is one of the earlier novels of Sharyn McCrumb, and she has not fine-tuned her approach to writing. McCrumb utilizes folk songs of yore to enhance the story. The main elements of the story are the twenty-year high school reunion, the plight of Viet Nam veterans, and the appearance of a popular folk singer. McCrumb portrays the veteran as if she actually served a tour of duty in Viet Nam. I am not sure that I really like Sheriff Spencer Arrowood. He seems weak and beset with demons. His life is a refrain of old songs from the 1960's and 1970's. This story does not have the extensive casts of players and seen in later novels. The quirky mountain people are absent from this work.

[laytonwoman3rd · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

In the small town of Hamelin in East Tennessee, plans are underway for the 20th reunion of the high school class of 1966. Sheriff Spencer Arrowood, his dispatcher Martha Ayers, and a few others remain in the old home town, but most of their classmates moved away. Gathering them back is stirring up memories that are not always pleasant---cliques and lost loves, boys who didn't make it back from Vietnam, and men who did. There have been the usual number of marriages and divorces, successes and failures, but not necessarily in the combinations that might have been predicted. And to complicate matters, someone is threatening a once-famous folksinger who has come to live quietly in Appalachia to try to write some new songs, and rejuvenate her career. At first the threats are subtle, and meaningful only to her, but they soon escalate in very ugly ways, culminating in the murder and mutilation of a local teenager. The music of the '60's, especially the folk music based on the Childe ballads, threads its way through the novel, cleverly informing the story line. This is the first of McCrumb's "ballad novels", and it was a dilly, with a nifty twist at the end that topped it all off. I've read a couple of these before, without realizing that they were a true series, with overlapping characters and all. I remember enjoying the others, but they didn't grab me the way this one did. I intend to re-read both of those, in order, as I proceed with the series; I suspect I'll like them better for that. McCrumb is promising to fill in the void that will be left when I've finished all of Margaret Maron's Deborah Knott novels, which strum the same reading chords for me.

[librisissimo · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

McCrumb is one of my favorite mystery writers, and I love her "Ballad" series because of their evocation of traditional music in a modern setting, which is what gives her novels their characteristic flair.She write a workman-like mystery, with the clues fairly laid, although the solution in this one is fallen over by the characters, rather than deduced in a Holmesian fashion (she does more ratiocination in later books). Her forte is delineating personalities and archetypical characters with individualistic appeal.This particular novel draws heavily on the 1960s and will be a nostalgia trip for older readers (good or bad?). I confess to having been in the Sixties but not of the Sixties, and recognize most references by name but not by experience (with some exceptions), enough to enjoy the trip.The messages to me were (1) don't make stereotyped generalizations about people based on what you think their experiences should have done to influence their behavior; and (2) old folk songs tell the same stories today that they have in the past. There are some rough violence and sexual passages, not too graphic, but suitable only for older teens.SPOILER about the ending: the killing of the murderer is understandable in equity (and even traditional, in some ways, in the genre), although definitely flouting the law; but, rationally speaking, the Sheriff only has the lady's word that the perp confessed to her and thus deserved to die (it's true, but he shouldn't be so quick to believe her on rather short acquaintance, or even if he had known her longer).

[lhaines56 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Very dark mystery concerning Vietnam vet obsessive killer. Kept you guessing all the way thru. Not really my cup of tea.

[readingover50 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I really like the author Sharyn McCrumb. I have read several of her books and think she is a very good writer. This book, although well written, was not one of her best. It was very slow paced, and too easy to figure out who the killer was. I never really cared that much about any of the characters. There was some beginning romances that never really went anywhere.

[jim53_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Read this for my face-to-face library mystery group. McCrumb (one of my favorite authors) does a great job with several things: none of the characters are all good or all bad, she uses several songs quite effectively to illuminate the story, and she introduces the facts about the sheriff in just the right order to help us get to know him. The mystery itself is probably the weakest part of the book. I like several of the other Ballad novels better, but this one is a good introduction to some recurring characters, and a pretty good mystery compared to many by other authors.

[romonko · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I really enjoyed this first book in Sharyn McCrumb's Appalachian mystery series. The book revolves around the planning for a 20 anniversary high school reunion, and it therefore covered the mid to late sixties, so the music, the history, and everything was actually from my era, so that made it fun. I am a 60's music buff, so I enjoyed the references to 60's folk and rock music very much. It is actually quite a surprising plot, and the killer turns out to be a real surprise. I also enjoyed the Tennessee countryside and the small town atmosphere. I am really looking forward to reading more about Sheriff Arrowood and Deputy Joe LeDonne looks to be a very interesting character. This Vietnam vet carries a lot of baggage as so many Vietnam vets do, but it makes him interesting and mysterious. Masterfully written, and a real page-turner is how I would describe this book.

[michaelm42071 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

If Ever I Return, Pretty Peggy-O is the first book of what Sharyn McCrumb calls her ballad series: each title comes from a folk ballad and the books are all set in Appalachia, though not all feature the same characters. This one is set in east Tennessee, on the other side of the Appalachians from where McCrumb grew up, and although there are some touches of local color, they are light touches. A few folk songs and parts of others are included, and we visit some picturesque mountain folk. Mostly the characters are ones you’d recognize from any small town, including the village crazy, who in this case shows up in the town square every day dressed in a different costume: today he’s Superman, tomorrow it may be Elvis or Roy Orbison.The main character of this book, Spencer Arrowood, is named after McCrumb’s grandfather. Arrowood is nearing forty, divorced, and very much at home in the small Tennessee town where he is sheriff, somewhere near Johnson City, well up in the mountains. Arrowood’s dispatcher, along with two of her friends, is organizing the 20th reunion of her high school class, which is also the sheriff’s. Spencer’s deputy is a hard-boiled Vietnam Vet. Memories of Vietnam and its era make up the theme of the book; the reunion and the return to the area of a once famous folk singer from the sixties are the two events that drive the plot. A notable feature of the book is that these characters and a few others not only hold our interest, but keep providing surprises as McCrumb develops them further.Another notable feature is the very novel way McCrumb handles what looks at first like it’s going to be a conventional suspenseful ending, with the vulnerable woman cornered by the psychopath and the hero rushing to save her. You might be able to guess part of this ending, but I guarantee it will mostly be a surprise. This is the first of five books featuring Spencer Arrowood. McCrumb has another detective series about a forensic anthropologist named Elizabeth MacPherson, and she has also written two satiric books about murder at Science Fiction and Fantasy conventions, with the fetching titles of Bimbos of the Death Star and Zombies of the Gene Pool.. Her most recent book is about the adulation of race car driver Dale Earnhardt. She’s clearly a versatile writer, grounded in an area she knows well.