MacPherson's Lament

Author: Sharyn McCrumb
List Price: $17.00
Our Price: Click to see the latest and low price
ISBN: 0345365763
Publisher: Ballantine Books (13 October, 1992)
Average Customer Rating: 3.44 out of 5

Customer Reviews

Rating: 4 out of 5
No lament for this fine mystery
Newly minted attorney Bill MacPherson sets up shop in Southside Virginia with law partner A.P. Hill (yes, she is descended from the General). As A.P. busies herself in a murder case, Bill finds himself in hot water when some old ladies whose house he's just sold just maybe don't own the house. And just why did they want the money wired to the Cayman Islands? And where are they? It falls to sister Elizabeth to sort things out.

Quick moving, an easy read. Even though as a lawyer myself (Virginia, too), stories about a lawyer's troubles are not entertainment for me, it was still an enjoyable read. ...

Somewhat of an annoyance for me were a number of errors McCrumb made about Virginia law--for example, the prosecutor would be referred to as the Commonwealth's Attorney. More an annoyance than anything else but it displays a lack of research detail.
Well worth reading.

Rating: 5 out of 5
Continuing saga of the MacPherson family
This series is quite different from the Appalacian Ballard series but vive la difference. There is a lot of sly humor tucked away, especially if you have read the others (not necessarily in any particularly order). Think more of the family and friends saga of Stephanie Plum but with more literary wit and you have the gist of it. I am waiting impatiently for the next book (PMS Outlaws was the last) to see where Bill and AP are going, what cousin Jeffrey is up to and how Elizabeth will reinvent herself.

Rating: 3 out of 5
Partial Lamenting over MacPherson's Lament
I was all set to enjoy this book as much as I enjoyed Ms. McCrumb's later Appalachia series. Unfortunately, I found that her earlier work does not compare to the work that she produces today.

MacPherson's Lament is a continuation of the series about forensic anthropologist Elizabeth MacPherson and the travails of her southern family. This book concerns her brother, Bill, who unwittingly sets himself up for charges of fraud when he sells an antebellum mansion for a group of Southern ladies to a Yankee fortune hunter. He finds out later that the house really belongs to the State of Virginia--his clients disappearing to parts unknown.

Elizabeth helps him out of this predicament in addition to helping his law partner, A. Powell Hill, with a murder case she is trying in court.

One review says that the book would lead to "a Civil War secret that may be the key to the ugly truth...." I did not find one at all, just a series of misunderstandings and disappointment.

For those who like them, this would make a very enjoyable cozy mystery read. I was expecting more, though, and like one reviewer I really saw no mystery in the book. But, I still like Sharyn McCrumb's work and plan to read the further adventures of Elizabeth MacPherson.



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