A Homecoming for Murder [Hardcover]

John Armistead (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 1995

In the sleepy, rural town, the pageantry of the high school homecoming celebration is a vital part of the community's sense of orderliness and well-being. Those values and rituals are slammed into chaos and terror by the cold-blooded murder of one of the school's most respected teachers. The thin, loose threads of the victim's secret life jerk Sheriff Grover Bramlett into a Byzantine web of deceit, forbidden love and fat bank accounts. Bramlett is swept into the maelstrom of fear when a young boy encounters the killer face-to-face in a cemetery.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Sheriff Grover Bramlett of Chakchiuma County, Miss., last seen in A Legacy of Vengeance, is looking forward to hunting squirrels and watching wrestling on TV with his visiting grandson, Marcellus, but a murder intervenes. Nobody in the backwater town of Sheffield is sorry about the killing of schoolteacher Jesse Bondreaux. Bondreaux seduced schoolgirls; he videotaped his conquests; and he was blackmailing two older women and one sleaze of a man. But the schoolteacher's death in a quiet cemetery is messy, and one of the witnesses to the speeding getaway car is Marcellus. Although Armistead relies on an implausible, hidden-in-plain-sight gambit for his conclusion, the procedural-rich chase prior to that is an exciting one. The side details?the romances, Bramlett's worry about his grandson, a squalid power struggle among small-town cops for possession of a seized Corvette?are all effectively employed.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

In the newest mystery from Armistead (A Legacy of Vengeance, Carroll & Graf, 1994) Sheriff Grover Bramlett of Sheffield, Mississippi, is planning to attend the town's homecoming game with his daughter and grandson, but the discovery of a nasty murder delays him. He then learns that the driver of a suspicious car nearly ran over his grandson while fleeing the murder scene. The car and its driver reappear at various portentous moments throughout the book, as do mysterious phone calls, gut feelings, and forebodings. Bramlett must find the murderer before the murderer finds his grandson. Smooth prose, dusted lightly with Southern American gothic and flavored with rural family values. For most collections.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Carroll & Graf; 1st edition (August 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786701978
• ISBN-13: 978-0786701971
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,827,867 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Great Read, June 20, 2001

By 

Jim Keith (Dallas, TX United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Homecoming for Murder (Paperback)

If you like mysteries that are ingeniously crafted, finely written, and full of fascinating mental pictures, anything by John Armistead will suffice. A gifted author from the same soil that gave us John Grisham, Willie Morris, and Barry Hannah, Armistead captures the culture of his southern home state to provide the crime-solving setting for some of life's universal good-and-evil predicaments. His imaginative mind, diverse background, and unique insight into the human story converge to offer us some of the better books to be read in a while. I anxiously await the next complex case in the clever career of my now favorite lawman, the Sheffield Sheriff, Grover Bramlett. Keep writing, John, and I will keep buying!