Maura (maura853) - , reviewed on 7/7/2017 + 542 more book reviews

I'll start positive: I really admire and enjoy McCrumb's Ballad books, with Nora Bonesteel. I feel they have excellent atmosphere, sense of place and characterization, and the mysteries they depict develop in subtle, unexpected ways.

None of which apply to this tedious little book. The novel is completely tone-deaf. There is nothing remotely funny about a mentally ill young woman who is murdered on the eve of her wedding. But McCrumb treats the young woman's desperate determination to escape her toxic family, and convince herself that she actually is even slightly lovable by hitching up with a self-centered clot as simply hilarious, even after the young woman is found with her head bashed in, floating Ophelia-like in a pond on the family's estate. The dynamic of the family is unbelievable. Elizabeth McPherson is no detective -- just an occasional narrative voice who is rather over-impressed with her own wit and "good sense."

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