Malice in Maggody

Rating:
Summary: Pleasant Diversion
Review: Generally I read pretty heavy murder mysteries (James Patterson, John Sandford, etc.). But now and then I like to take a
break from novels that are of course fiction, but are close enough to reality to make you uneasy. The Maggody books are
murder mysteries but they are also little gems of cartoon like comedy set in a one stop light town on a not so busy highway. If you're looking for an easy read and a pleasant diversion you should spend a little time in Maggody.

Rating:
Summary: Great Little Book
Review: I found this book in a box of old paperbacks that my grandfather had in his basement. The only reason I read it was because I liked the cover (never judge a book by its cover) and it was not as thick as most paperbacks and fit easily into my purse. This event turned into an absolute love for Joan Hess and Maggody. I can't tell you how many times I laughed out loud while reading this book. Cute plot twists and the characters are classic.

Rating:
Summary: The first Arly Hanks
Review: This is ground zero, the first in the Maggody series and now rather difficult to obtain (the first hardcover edition sells at a premium as a collector's item). Actually you don't get a lot of extra detail about Arly Hanks that you wouldn't have figured out from the later books. This is not a roman fleuve (pardon my French) like, for instance, Sue Grafton's alphabet series that we read almost as much to follow what will happen next in Kinsey Milhone's life as for the plot of the individual book.
The series is set in a a small town in the Ozarks, populated by simple country rubes, where Arly Hanks, a displaced and divorced New Yorker is chief of police. The stories are told partly in the first person by Arly but switch to other characters' points of view. There are the usual faults that we criticize Joan Hess for. Delia is funny because she is fat and eats a lot. Brother Verber is funny because he is a blatant hypocrite. I suspect that Hess is faux naif (French again) and the cartoonish drawing of supporting characters is a deliberate ploy to fix the town of Maggody in our minds. She never makes any bones about saying what a depressing place Maggody is, and often describes stark tragedy, yet the effect is somehow cheerful and reading a Magoddy book is a delightful relaxation.