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Summary: You'll never think of dolphins the same way
Review: I enjoyed this book, though it's much darker than the rest of the light-hearted series. I'm sorry Ms. Mccrumb gave up on Elizabeth MacPherson, but at least we have this fine swan song for her. Enjoy!
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Summary: The Best Gift My Mother In Law Ever Gave Me
Review: I had never heard of Sharyn McCrumb before getting this book from my dear departed mother in law.When I picked it up while helping my father in law wade through her personal belongings, we were all still in tears from our loss. This book made me roll in the floor laughing my ... off. I found myself not wanting to put it down. You can read all the other reviews on this book if you want someone to tell you how the story ends. Personally, I'd rather read the book to find that part out. You will have fun. Sharyn McCrumb has written over 30 other books that I have now located and read. This is one of her best although the ballad novels are wonderful too. The Rosewood Casket is excellent. This book is helpful to share with women friends who are dealing with divorce and particularly unfaithful spouses. The emotions of pain that are shown here but then charged with laughter are a wonderful way to start the healing. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt, don't need a hat.
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Summary: Not her best
Review: I have read all of this author's Elizabeth MacPherson series. In my opinion this is a disappointing book in the series. I would recommend that others try her earlier works.
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Summary: A great mystery, some good laughs, and good writing, too!
Review: I love a good mystery, and I love a well-written book. Having both in the same package is a real treat!Sharyn McCrumb gives us vivid, fascinating portraits of women and their love relationships from several different perspectives. Her detective, Elizabeth MacPherson, is a young anthropologist grieving for her husband who is apparently lost at sea. She returns to her hometown and offers to help her brother, a young lawyer in a struggling law practice with a young woman partner. Elizabeth's "journal", letters she writes to the husband she never expects to see again, form the frame around portraits of three of the law firm's clients, all of them women with relationship problems. One woman was discarded by her husband for a younger, more attractive "trophy." She kills them both and says "Yes, I did it, and I'd do it again. They deserved it." The second is a battered wife whose husband is apparently murdered, but she swears she is innocent. The third is a young woman animal trainer who seeks the firm's help so that she can legally marry the love of her life--- who happens to be a dolphin! The women's stories are all both funny and poignant, and the denouement both credible and satisfying. A mystery that provides a good evening of entertainment is a worthy object. A book that introduces me to characters that I keep thinking about after I have finished it is even more worthy. This book succeeds both as a mystery and as a fascinating novel. I have enjoyed past Elizabeth MacPherson books, and they seem to get better and better! I can't wait for the next one!
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Summary: May need new copy - current one getting pretty tattered.
Review: I may need to order a new copy of this book. I have lent my current copy out to so many people it's becoming pretty tattered. And each friend recommends it to someone else, so I now have a waiting list. VERY FUNNY book!!
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Summary: Not the best
Review: I read this as a book club selection - and we all wondered why we'd picked it. Not the best storylines to say the least. The one that involves the dolphin is especially ridiculous.
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Summary: Funny book...
Review: I really liked this book, the characters were very well drawn. Lots of humor!
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Summary: The Challenge of Rearing Husbands
Review: I recently heard of a quote attributed to Ruth Bell Graham, the wife of evangelist, Billy Graham, when asked if she had ever considered divorce in the many years of their marriage; her tongue-in-cheek answer came to mind on my completion of this book: "Murder - yes; divorce - never!" Sharon McCrumb might have had this thought in mind while writing "If I'd Killed Him When I Met Him". If nothing else, this book has a five-star title; it is intriguing enough to practically carry the book on its own sly humor. Fortunately, the title's encouragement isn't wholly wasted on the story. McCrumb again uses a technique which she has employed in other works - "The Ballad of Frankie Silver" and "She Walks These Hills", for example - weaving a historical event into the fibers of a modern mystery. Here, the poisoning death of Major Philip Todhunter, allegedly at the hands of his wife, Lucy, seems to have been re-enacted by her great-granddaughter, who has a religiously-militant husband. Trying to solve both apparent murders falls to forensic anthropologist, Elizabeth MacPherson, whose brother, Bill, a gawky small-town lawyer, has been hired to defend the accused wife. In addition to that case, Elizabeth is called to assist Bill's law partner, A.P. Hill, with the case of Eleanor Royden, a socialite who dispatched her ex-husband lawyer and his sweet-young-thing new wife into the afterlife after having been the subject of her ex-husband's bloodlust for the sport of divorce. Elizabeth juggles the investigation of these cases while wrestling with upheaval in her own life: her mother's new-found zest for life and her determination to avoid dealing with the apparent death at sea of her beloved mate, Cameron. I enjoyed this book (as I have all other McCrumb works), and often found myself laughing aloud at Elizabeth's wit and Eleanor's venom, in addition to the "folksy" atmosphere McCrumb describes in Danville, Virginia. However, I found myself annoyed at A.P. Hill, a newbie lawyer who takes herself (and womankind) far too seriously (as a female lawyer myself, sometimes all you can do with some clients and yourself is laugh - A.P. has yet to learn this survival strategy), and the sub-plots involving a group of ultra-liberal feminist academics and the extreme view of animal rights taken by one of them. The book lost credibility while muddling through these unrealistic and ludicrous elements, and they (in addition to a pervasive view of most men as sinister adulterers or bumbling idiots) sincerely made me wonder if McCrumb was wresting with some personal animosities on paper. But the book still raises important questions about a woman's relationship with herself and with the men in her life, and what it means for her to "take control" of her destiny. I think Ruth Bell Graham would chuckle reading this book too.
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Summary: McCrumb turns a phrase with the best of them!
Review: I recently was blessed to stumble across a book I had bought for my wife sometime back. Sharyn McCrumb's "If I Had Killed Him When I met Him" is an excellent mystery novel. McCrumb's ability to write a mystery novel full of clever dialogue, social commentary, and interesting characters. Multiple myseteries unfold that compel the reader to remain up late at night to read "just one more chapter." McCrumb's ability to move the plots along (all of them) and keep the reader from getting distracted makes this a GREAT novel rather than just a good read. Some of her other novels are not quite the same caliber, but Sharyn strikes a finely tuned chord with this novel. I highly recommend it.
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Summary: kind of depressing
Review: I've read and enjoyed most all of Sharyn McCrumb's books. This one was as good as the others, except for one thing. It was unusually depressing. A woman dies attempting to perform a strange sex act. A beloved character is lost at sea throughout the novel, and does not return in the end. And other little things like that. It's hard to describe. I would guess the author must have been going through some hard times while she was writing it, most likely involving men. Or maybe it was just a theme she decided on, something like this: Everyone's lives can get turned upside-down with no notice, and you can't expect easy answers, quick fixes, or happy endings.
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