O Little Town of Maggody: An Arly Hanks Mystery (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Hess follows Maggody in Manhattan with another romp, the seventh, featuring the good folks from the small Arkansas town, pop. 755. When it's discovered that country music star Matt Montana was not only born in Maggody but plans to visit his birthplace to give a Christmas concert, the town goes wild with hopes of cashing in on a native son's good fortune. His old home, now a rundown shack, is refurbished, and plans are made to open "The Official Matt Montana Souvenir Shoppe." Matt announces that he will visit his only surviving relative, Aunt Adele. But then Adele disappears from her nursing home and Chief of Police Arly Hanks (she is the entire department), who returned to her hometown from Manhattan, begins to suspect a kidnapping. While Arly searches for Adele, the Nashville crowd arrives and the denizens of Maggody produce a stand-in for the missing auntie. Arly is wrapping up the old woman's mysterious disappearance when she discovers that the body of a murdered record company executive has replaced the mannequin in the window of Mrs. Jim Bob's General Store. Untangling the motives of Matt's entourage as well as the wacky reasoning of her townspeople keeps Arly on her toes for another uproarious visit to the backwoods.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Joy to the world! Arly Hanks, chief of police in Maggody, Arkansas, is back. It's Christmas in Maggody, and the town is all agog over the impending visit of country-western singer Matt Montana, who hopes to jump start a booze-ravaged career with press coverage of his heart-warming return to his hometown. One small problem: Matt's only relative in Maggody is an aging aunt who lives in the county home and has a tendency to listen to aliens from outer space on her hearing aid. Not to worry. Before you can say "money-spending tourists," the pious mayor's wife, Mrs. Jim Bob Buchanon, has sprung into action. Soon stores have been renamed in Matt's honor, souvenir shops opened, and the Montana homestead refurbished in country-cosy style. The disappearance of Matt's aunt from the home puts something of a wrinkle into the plans, leaving Arly to sort out the mess while trying to avoid Mrs. Jim Bob and her relentless badgering. Things go tolerably well until the dead body of Matt's promoter turns up, dressed as a Matt Montana mannequin in the window of Mrs. Jim Bob's souvenir shop. All in all, this is another delightful installment in a superbly comic series. And for all those Maggody fans who will ask, Marjorie, the pampered porcine pet, does reappear and even plays a key role in solving the mystery. Stuart Miller --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Onyx; 3rd printing edition (November 1, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0451404572
• ISBN-13: 978-0451404572
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #433,476 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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• This is item 7 in The Arly Hanks Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Getting better, January 8, 2003

By	D. P. Birkett (Suffern, NY USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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This review is from: O Little Town of Maggody: 2An Arly Hanks Mystery (Hardcover)

A country and western music star is scheduled to visit his claimed home town and visit his dear old great-aunt. The usual Maggody misadventures and murders familiar to all ardent Hessians take place.
I think this is a series that gets better as it goes on. There is a certain crudity and dependence on cliches and stereotypes in the earlier character drawing. The fat girl Delia is greedy; the preacher is a hypocrite. The later ones have more subtlety.
"She had her cat, Pussy Toes, her apartment in a quiet neigborhood, her meetings of the genealogical society, her knitting projects for nieces and nephews, and her annual vaction to a family-run hotel in Mexico where she remained drunk out of her mind for ten days straight." You might accuse Hess of making fun of alcoholism in that portrait of Miss Vetchling but it has a certain style and sharpness.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars O Little Town of Maggody, August 7, 2008

By	Anna M. Ligtenberg "AnnaLovesBooks" (Chicago) - See all my reviews

ISBN 0451404572 - You know those people who tell sort of bad jokes and find themselves wildly amusing, while all you can do is roll your eyes? That's this Joan Hess book for me. And surely someone out there finds her amusing, because someone's buying the books - but I'm just rolling my eyes.

Arly's always got her hands full in Maggody, but this Christmas things are getting a little more hectic. The town is slowly dying, but there's hope on the horizon in the person of Matt Montana, Maggody's own prodigal son. He's serving his own career and the people of Maggody would benefit from a bit of tourism... so Matt's on his way to town. The problem is that Matt's Aunt Adele has gone missing. Arly is also trying to riddle out the moving city limits sign, deal with Dahlia's jealousy and suspicions about what Kevin's up to, the return of Hammett and a myriad of other goings-on in Maggody.

Arly Hanks reminds me of Isle of Dogs, but not quite as awful. In fact, not awful at all, just... dumb. The same "this is funny, really, you should laugh" feeling runs through both books, but they're just not - to me. The characters are so stereotypical that they're miles beyond amusing and closer to stupid. If you enjoy the tongue-in-cheek style, lightly mocking the mystery genre, you're going to enjoy Hess, and fans of Arly Hanks will like the book far more than I. Hess herself gave me a quote I couldn't pass up: "Writers ...they're so goofy nobody cares what they do."

- AnnaLovesBooks

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Just Could not Finish it !!!, September 30, 2004

By	Irish Accountant (Chicago, Illinois) - See all my reviews

I have been reading all of the Arly Hanks books in order and at first they were there cute little novels with charming characters from AR. This one I actually gave up on. Everything has become a cliche and just overdone.
I am sorry Ms. Hess - normally I love your work but this one I just could not get through.