Customer Reviews

Murder Runs in the Family

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

My mother and I have enjoyed these books tremendously. My mother is 59 and mother of three. I am 31 and mother of 2. Mama is so like the sane sister! Her name is even Patricia! We laughed so hard tears came to our eyes. Everyone in the South knows a Mary Alice! I highly reccomend all of the Southern Sisters books. We especially laughed over the fashion no-nos. My grandmother would have said we were common as pig's tracks too if we would have worn white after Labor Day.

This third entry in the series is laugh-out-loud wonderful. I have never actually laughed while reading a book before. Yes, of course I've smiled, teared up, been disturbed etc., but I mean Ms. George can really make you laugh. Patricia Anne is a humorous, yet poignant voice. While signing on to review this book today, I couldn't help notice the AOL news about the latest horrible shooting in Atlanta. This made me think of Patricia Anne's simple true comment about the world "being too much with us." I found the book most hysterical when Mary Alice gives her fiction telling a try. Escape the world and the heat by spending some time with these sisters.

"Murder Runs in the Family" is the third book in the eight-book mystery series featuring the "Southern Sisters." Sadly, Anne George passed away in 2001 and it's a shame that readers will no longer have new, witty dialogues. If you have not read this series - I urge you to order them all and read them in sequence. You will not regret it!

In this book, we find the brash, bold, extra-large Mary Alice in preparation for her daughter's first wedding. Deborah is marrying a former student of her Aunt Patricia Anne's who may also be the former father of her twins as he donated sperm to the clinic! It is funny in a good, clean sort of way. It depicts middle-America at its finest.

Mary Alice finds a little romance of her own in "Murder Runs in the Family" as does Patricia Anne's widowed daughter - Haley. Fred and Patricia Anne make you believe in "happily ever after" as they celebrate 40 years of marriage.

Patricia Anne is constantly amazed at the transformations of her former students. In this book, she amazes herself as she delves into a little geneology.

This is a DELIGHTFUL series. I promise you. You will NOT be disappointed.

This is my first Southern Sisters novel and I thoroughly enjoyed every page. The sisters, Patricia Anne and Mary Alice are hilarious.

In this mystery, Mary Alice's daughter gets married and the wedding guests are varied and include Meg March Bryan, a very successful genealogist, and a guest from the groom's side of the family. Patricia Anne and Mary Alice become chummy with Meg and have a luncheon date with her. The luncheon goes well, until their guest hurries away without her two briefcases. Shortly after that the sisters learn that Meg has taken her life by jumping off the 9th floor of the building across the street. The sister detectives get involved with her death which they don't believe was a sucide.

What makes this book so charming are the sisters. Patricia Anne, a former English teacher, and married to Fred for over forty years, is a tiny and proper lady. Her sister,Mary Alice is almost her opposite in every way. She's big, beautiful and men seem to love all 250 pounds of her. She describes herself as being 5 foot 12 inches tall and she's looking for a fourth husband. The first three are all lying in the cemetery, side by side. Mary Alice calls Patricia Anne, Mouse and tells people that little Mouse is anorexic. I laughed out loud over the verbal exchanges between the sisters.

I read this very quickly, and I can't wait to read more books in this series.

Anne George is a delight. Each of her books is more enjoyable to read than the last. She just doesn't write fast enough for this fan!!

Sister's daughter gets married to her chef, Sister is very happy. She meets the octogenerian man of her dreams, who flies her off on exotic trips. Mouse gets stuck with the strange relative of the groom, left over from the wedding. She is a geneologist named Meg Bryan. The local geneologists, some of them at the wedding seem to hate her. A local judge, really hates her. She goes to visit him anyway only to take a skydive out his window. The judge and everyone else seem to want Meg's laptop. Did she commit suicide or was she murdered? Why?

This was a very entertaining mystery. I love the characters and the descriptions. The mystery is very good. I only have two very minor criticisms. If her dog Woofer is so old, why is he outside in every weather. Give him a bath and flea dip and bring him inside. There is entirely too much talk about Vulcan's behind. It might be big, but it's getting boring.

Anne George has written a wonderful book. Patricia Anne and Mary Alice obviously love each other, but they still argue like other sibling do. They are hilarious. When murder comes up, expect Patricia Anne to put her nose into it and expect Mary Alice to follow after her. With a fast moving plot, this book can easily be read in one day.

The third installment of the silly Southern sisters is Murder Runs in the Family. Here we find Patricia Anne and Mary Alice at a wedding for Mary Alice's daughter, Debbie. At the wedding we are introduced to the groom's family including genealogist, Meg Bryant, but there is more than meet's the eye. The following day Mary Alice and Patricia Anne go to meet Meg for lunch and shortly thereafter Meg commits suicide. Or is it suicide?

I thought the sisters' hijinx were funny and entertaining as usual. I did fell this one predictable but I still enjoyed the cute coziness of it. I was looking for a cozy entertaining read and that's what I found here. I'd give this 3.5 stars because it was predictable but I'm rounding up because I am enjoying the series as a whole! Onto to the next one.

Mary Alice has pulled out all the stops for her daughter's lavish wedding. ( With three marriages of her own under her belt she is, after all, something of an authority on the subject ). The ceremony goes off without a hitch, but when one of the groom's relatives mysteriously "falls" from the 9th floor of the courthouse building Mary Alice begins to wonder just what kind of family her daughter has married into!

This is the third installment in the series and like its predecessors it is an entertaining read. The most enjoyable parts of the story involve the relationship between Mary Alice (aka `Sister') and her younger sister, Patricia Anne (Mouse). Their bantering is priceless: well-written dialogue with a kind of understated humor. I found myself smiling through many parts of the book. The "mystery" is of the classic cozy variety - not particularly plausible and won't keep you awake at night. But the setting and domestic details...nicely done.

The sisters are in their 60's, but I think cozy fans of any age will enjoy this. After all, there is just something about that sisterly bond that transcends age, race and economic status. And Ms. George captures it beautifully.

The setting is present day Birmingham, Alabama; no sexual content and no strong language

I'm going to stretch my rating for this book from 3 stars up to 4 stars simply because it is another link in the chain for this outstanding series by author Anne George. For my tastes this mystery was not anywhere as good as the previous two novels. This one seemed to have to stretch credibility a little too far to make the mystery work for me but I still really enjoyed the book.

This is the third installment in the Southern Sisters mystery series and involves Patricia Anne (the recently retired school teacher)and her sister Mary Alice (a widow three times over) in the world of genealogy. The day after the sumptious wedding of Mary Alice's daughter the two sisters set out to entertain the bridegroom's cousin. They are completely at a loss as to why Meg Bryan would commit suicide (especially after such a lovely lunch!) and in that particular way too. From this point on Paticia Anne becomes more and more involved in the "dog-eat-dog" world of professional genealogists.

I'm afraid that serious mystery solvers will howl with disbelief over how this mystery is constructed. It could, and should, have been over just as soon as it began. That's where my tendency to give a 3 star rating for this book came from. It is not a good mystery. It is not even credible that it could have happened the way it is constructed. Then, to add insult to injury, the author didn't have enough characters in the story so the guilty party and the true situation was always evident. But, and this is the redeeming part which qualified this book for 4 stars from me, the story is just so darn nice that points are added for just plain goodness.

I'm glad to say that all of my favorite characters are back from the previous books because these folks have now become "family". It just wouldn't be right not to include a shopping trip to the Big, Bold and Beautiful Shoppe to see Bonnie Blue. Patricia Anne and Fred's daughter Haley has started dating and seems to be coping better with the death of her husband. And the dialogue between Mary Alice, Patricia Anne and Fred as the wedding ceremony was about to begin is so realistic that I think I've actually been there. The characters are warm, genuine and funny as all getout. Plan to buy all eight of these books because they are completely addictive and how could you ever read just one? I drove through Birmingham last week on the way to visit relatives and almost broke my neck trying to spot familiar places. It's that kind of series, very realistic and personal.