The PMS Outlaws

September 4, 2000
This mild-mannered mystery, number nine in the Elizabeth MacPherson series from versatile writer McCrumb (Bimboes of the Death Sun; If I'd Killed Him When I Met Him), is a humorous, fast-paced story. When we join MacPherson, she has just checked into the Cherry Hill Psychiatric Hospital to deal with depression brought on by the death of her husband. Meanwhile, struggling Virginia lawyer Bill MacPherson, Elizabeth's brother, has purchased an old mansion for his law firm's upscale office. The mansion comes with a catch: the elderly man who originally built the house (with apparently dubious funds) is still living on the sun porch. As Bill works out the real estate deal, his law partner, A.P. Powell, disappears to chase clues about the newly infamous PMS Outlaws, who have been stealing money from men and leaving them handcuffed in compromising positions. While the novel's many eccentric characters never fail to entertain, the mystery of the old man is little more than a distraction, both for the reader and for Elizabeth. As for the PMS Outlaws, they are completely transparent in their motivations: they want to get money and cut men down to size. What keeps the pages turning is the desire to see Elizabeth and Powell find their way out of their obsessions and back to their respective lives. McCrumb's gift is for making us care whether they do. Mystery Guild main selection; 6-city author tour.

September 1, 2000
Forensic anthropologist Elizabeth MacPherson (MacPherson's Lament, Missing Susan), who has voluntarily committed herself to a mental hospital following the disappearance of her husband at sea, returns in McCrumb's new mystery. Elizabeth discovers that one of her fellow mental patients has some criminal connection to the aged resident of the building that her lawyer brother has just bought. (First implausibility: would a lawyer buy an office building that had an elderly man living on the back porch?) The brother's uptight law partner is being stalked, for no apparent reason, by the title characters, an acquaintance from Elizabeth's law school days and the client she has sprung from prison. The two women casually cruise bars around the South while on their way to freedom in Canada, robbing men and leaving them hog-tied in embarrassing situations. (Second implausibility: why aren't they in a rush to get to Canada?) The outlaw plot line and the elderly criminals' plot line eventually come close to converging in an unfulfilling and anticlimactic ending in which the PMS Outlaws don't actually make an appearance. The none-too-exciting denouement is revealed only in conversation by the other characters. Recommended only for libraries with all-inclusive mystery collections. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 5/1/00.]--Lisa Bier, Mashantucket Pequot Museum & Research Ctr., CT

Copyright 2000 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 1, 2000
Elizabeth MacPherson, the forensic anthropologist and amateur sleuth who, in eight previous mysteries, has pieced together puzzles using her skills in analyzing bones and human nature, has been hospitalized for depression following the disappearance of her husband in the North Sea. How she is going to climb out of depression's depths forms the central mystery here. How her brother's feisty law partner, A. P. Hill, is going to stop the PMS Outlaws, two women who delight in tricking men out of their clothes and wallets, forms another mystery. The greatest mystery, however, is how McCrumb manages to inject humor and incisive social commentary throughout--not just in the PMS Outlaws' gender-rage rampage through Appalachia but also into the goings-on at the Cherry Hill Psychiatric Hospital. Along with the humor, she expertly weaves the theme of beauty as social currency through the stopped lives of the women and men at Cherry Hill and through the frenzied revenge of the PMS Outlaws. Her characters have breadth and believability, providing fresh and furious insights on this wacky road trip. The Edgar-winning McCrumb is in top form here. ((Reviewed July 2000))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2000, American Library Association.)