If Ever I Return Pretty Peggy – O – Sharon Mccrumb

They were in a plateau now, a thousand feet higher than Hamelin, but seemingly in lowland, because of the mountain barricades on either side of the valley. Spencer turned down a spur road marked with only a number on a signpost. He slowed to twenty miles an hour. “Deer,” he said, to Peggy’s unspoken question. “Even in broad daylight here.” She directed her attention to the wooded hills beyond the tall grass, but all was still. “Look ahead of us!” he said, touching her arm. She turned in time to see a flash of red disappear into the trees on the left side of the road.

“What was it?” “Red-winged blackbird. You don’t see too many of them. They don’t like people, either.” “T haven’t seen any of those in my yard,” said Peggy. “You won’t see them in Hamelin. We have different birds in town. A loteof robins, sparrows, blue jays. Suburban birds. Up here you get the wilder ones—bluebirds and orioles. Owls at night. Buzzards, who constitute our rural sanitation department.

Even golden eagles.” The landscape was as still as a postcard. She stared out at the sagging wire fences and the weathered barns, their ugliness soft- ened by the rich green of summer grass and the bird’s-egg-blue sky. “Have you ever seen an eagle?” Spencer slowed the car as the lineless blacktop changed to gravel. “Not up close,” he told her. “They aren’t golden, any- how. Just big brown birds. My uncle Trace says you can tell them by the way they fly. They’re about the same size as turkey vul- tures, but they fly with their wings right straight out.

Turkey vultures fly with their wings in a V shape.” He turned again, this time into a narrow lane whose center line was a grassy hump skirted by tire tracks. “Almost there,” he announced. “This was where my dad’s kin settled.” “How long ago?” asked Peggy, looking out at the unmown pastures and ramshackle outbuildings.

“Hundred and fifty years, at least. I had great-great-uncles who were draft dodgers in the Civil War.” Peggy grinned at him. “Ahead of their time,” she said. The old home place of the Arrowood clan was a one-story white-frame farmhouse with a wide front porch, all in need of a coat of paint.

At each corner of the house stood an ancient oak tree.

If Ever I Return, Pretty Peggy-O marks a brilliant new achievement in the distinguished career of Edgar Award-winning author Sharyn McCrumb. As much a novel of Appalachia as it is a novel of spellbinding suspense, Peggy-O takes us to Hamelin, Tennessee, a small town that much of the world seems to have forgotten.

The over- achievers left Hamelin long ago for college and success as doctors and lawyers in the big cities. But some of the Hamelin High School class of 1966 stayed behind, men and women such as Spencer Arrowood, the sheriff, and Martha Ayers, his receptionist. Now they’re planning a grand reunion, hoping to lure back to town from afar some of the more glamorous class members.

There’s already excitement in town, however, with the arrival of famous sixties folksinger Peggy Muryan. Peggy has bought the town mansion, where she’s living quietly with her dog and composing new songs for a comeback tour. The local people are a little awed by Peggy’s fame, but she’s starting to feel comfortable with them and they with her when the threats begin.

First it’s a postcard, with a strange message from Peggy’s past. Then it’s something more violent, something the sheriff can’t write off as a harmless if annoying prank. Someone is frightening Peggy Muryan in a most serious way: Spencer and his deputy, Joe LeDonne, look for a ruthless killer, while Martha, the receptionist who never went to college and couldn’t stay married to her two husbands, plans the reunion. She envies the cheerleaders and the prom queens, but she’ll soon learn that not even all cheerleaders live happily ever after.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

Book Information

• Unique ID: b9add070fc486c50
• File Extension: .pdf
• File Size: 13,351,393 bytes (12.733 MB)
• Title: –
• Author: Unknown
• ISBN: 0684191040
• Pages: 329
• Language: English (en)

Reading & Word Statistics

• Estimated Reading Time: 462.41 minutes
• Total Words: 92,482
• Total Characters: 516,977
• Average Words per Page: 281.1
• Average Characters per Page: 1571.36

Most Frequent Words

said (491), spencer (470), like (254), back (253), one (251), martha (246), know (231), didn’t (223), peggy (221), ledonne (214), don’t (199), get (195), now (183), think (181), thought (177), time (175), looked (175), see (170), ever (158), sharyn (154), people (153), maybe (149), still (144), old (143), mccrumb (138), it’s (138), pretty (135), little (129), want (128), going (127), got (121), tyndall (121), much (120), around (118), way (117), return (113), come (113), i’m (113), house (112), never (110), look (108), wasn’t (108), long (106), well (106), made (102), make (100), tell (98), night (97), years (96), peggy-o (95), sheriff (93), take (91), even (90), wanted (90), something (89), head (88), good (87), school (86), went (86), reunion (84), though (84), face (84), dead (83), door (83), right (81), home (81), asked (81), dog (79), high (78), hamelin (76), away (76), girl (75), say (74), took (73), anything (73), two (72), white (72), remember (72), car (71), day (71), place (71), told (71), muryan (69), let (69), knew (68), wouldn’t (68), sure (68), put (67), eyes (66), last (64), lot (64), sally (64), cal (63), he’d (63), office (63), hair (63), case (63), nodded (62), county (62), town (61).

PDF Download