From Amazon.com
Sharyn McCrumb is one of the major wonders of the mystery world. Her books about forensic anthropologist Elizabeth MacPherson (including
Highland Laddie Gone) are strong, meaty contemporary stories; her comic novels (
Bimbos of the Death Sun,
Zombies of the Gene Pool) are delightful satires. And then there's the jewel in her crown, the series known as the Ballad novels (including
The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter and
The Rosewood Casket) where the third-generation Appalachian resident McCrumb sews together what she calls "colored scraps of legends, ballads and fragments of rural life and local tragedy" into books that are like Appalachian quilts.
The Ballad of Frankie Silver is the fifth in the Ballad series, and it might well be the best. The blend between the old story and the new is perfect, as Sheriff Spencer Arrowood digs into the 1832 case of the first woman ever hanged for murder in North Carolina--18-year-old Frankie Silver, charged with dismembering her husband--while some disturbing new evidence is surfacing about another, much more recent capital crime. If you have friends who don't read mysteries but liked
Cold Mountain, pointing them toward McCrumb might be the start of something big.
--Dick Adler
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
What could a century-old hanging have to do with an upcoming Tennessee electrocution? Based on a true story and told partly in flashback from four perspectives, FRANKIE seems a natural for a multi-cast production; shifts in time and character would be clearer. Even so, this is a listening experience that grips and doesn't let go. Setting is important here, and Herbert's husky voice conveys but doesn't overdo an Appalachian drawl while she expertly paces the pre-execution suspense. Perhaps by design, she is most effective as the two prisoners, especially the doomed Frankie, whose fragile, frightened words travel hauntingly through time. J.B.G. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine
