{"id":263680,"date":"2026-07-14T14:44:40","date_gmt":"2026-07-14T11:44:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/1kitap1.com\/en\/if-ever-i-return-pretty-peggy-o-sharon-mccrumb\/"},"modified":"2026-07-14T14:44:40","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T11:44:40","slug":"if-ever-i-return-pretty-peggy-o-sharon-mccrumb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1kitap1.com\/en\/if-ever-i-return-pretty-peggy-o-sharon-mccrumb\/","title":{"rendered":"If Ever I Return Pretty Peggy – O – Sharon Mccrumb"},"content":{"rendered":"
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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. \u201cDeer,\u201d he said, to Peggy\u2019s unspoken question. \u201cEven in broad daylight here.\u201d She directed her attention to the wooded hills beyond the tall grass, but all was still. \u201cLook ahead of us!\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat was it?\u201d \u201cRed-winged blackbird. You don\u2019t see too many of them. They don\u2019t like people, either.\u201d \u201cT haven\u2019t seen any of those in my yard,\u201d said Peggy. \u201cYou won\u2019t 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\u2014bluebirds and orioles. Owls at night. Buzzards, who constitute our rural sanitation department.<\/p>\n

Even golden eagles.\u201d 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\u2019s-egg-blue sky. \u201cHave you ever seen an eagle?\u201d Spencer slowed the car as the lineless blacktop changed to gravel. \u201cNot up close,\u201d he told her. \u201cThey aren\u2019t golden, any- how. Just big brown birds. My uncle Trace says you can tell them by the way they fly. They\u2019re about the same size as turkey vul- tures, but they fly with their wings right straight out.<\/p>\n

Turkey vultures fly with their wings in a V shape.\u201d He turned again, this time into a narrow lane whose center line was a grassy hump skirted by tire tracks. \u201cAlmost there,\u201d he announced. \u201cThis was where my dad\u2019s kin settled.\u201d \u201cHow long ago?\u201d asked Peggy, looking out at the unmown pastures and ramshackle outbuildings.<\/p>\n

\u201cHundred and fifty years, at least. I had great-great-uncles who were draft dodgers in the Civil War.\u201d Peggy grinned at him. \u201cAhead of their time,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

At each corner of the house stood an ancient oak tree.<\/p>\n

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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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019re planning a grand reunion, hoping to lure back to town from afar some of the more glamorous class members.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s already excitement in town, however, with the arrival of famous sixties folksinger Peggy Muryan. Peggy has bought the town mansion, where she\u2019s living quietly with her dog and composing new songs for a comeback tour. The local people are a little awed by Peggy\u2019s fame, but she\u2019s starting to feel comfortable with them and they with her when the threats begin.<\/p>\n

First it\u2019s a postcard, with a strange message from Peggy\u2019s past. Then it\u2019s something more violent, something the sheriff can\u2019t 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\u2019t stay married to her two husbands, plans the reunion. She envies the cheerleaders and the prom queens, but she\u2019ll soon learn that not even all cheerleaders live happily ever after.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.<\/em><\/p>\n

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