The PMS Outlaws: An Elizabeth MacPherson Novel [Hardcover]

Sharyn McCrumb (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 5, 2000

Bestselling author Sharyn McCrumb, internationally acclaimed for the "quiet fire"* of her Appalachian Ballad novels, clearly has a dark side--a wicked, sardonic wit that has prompted critics to compare her to Jane Austen and Jonathan Swift.

Readers and reviewers alike also have lauded Ms. McCrumb for her inspired chronicles of forensic anthropologist Elizabeth MacPherson. In her newest tale in the MacPherson saga, McCrumb examines society's fascination with beauty--and the deceptiveness of outer appearances. Elizabeth herself, hospitalized for depression over her missing husband, learns that insanity liberates one from polite hypocrisy, enabling a "crazy lady" to remark: "Anorexia is not a disease; it's a career move."

Out in the real world, Elizabeth's brother Bill has bought a stately old mansion to use as his law office, only to find that the house comes with a charming codger-in-residence who is far too old to be a dangerous outlaw. . . isn't he? Meanwhile, the steel magnolia who is Bill's law partner is trying to track down the PMS Outlaws--an escaped convict and her fugitive attorney--who are cruising pickup joints and wreaking a peculiar vengeance on lust-crazed men.

Sharyn McCrumb's incisive wit and her genius for mirroring everyday life are once again on full display. The PMS Outlaws is an outrageous parable of modern mores, where beauty is the weapon, and nobody is safe.

*The New York Times Book Review


From the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Forensic anthropologist Elizabeth MacPherson (Highland Laddie Gone, Lovely in Her Bones) is dealing with death, but not at her usual scientific remove. She's checked herself into Cherry Hill Psychiatric Hospital in an attempt to come to terms with her husband's recent death. Meanwhile her brother Bill, a Virginia lawyer, is attempting to soothe the ire of his partner, A.P. Hill, by purchasing a Tara-like mansion in the hopes of attracting a better class of client. Unfortunately, the mansion comes complete with a resident character, one Jack Dolan, the 90-year-old former owner who refuses to leave. But Hill is uninterested in Bill's nesting efforts. She's intent on understanding a former law-school rival's sudden embarkation on a life of crime. P.J. Purdue has broken a client out of prison and the pair, dubbed "the PMS Outlaws" by the press, are terrorizing all manner of male chauvinists. They seduce the men, convince them to disrobe and submit to handcuffing (with promises of tantalizing escapades to come), and then flee with the dupe's clothes and wallet. It's amusing in the abstract, until Purdue begins using A.P.'s name as an alias and the cops come knocking on her door.

The two narratives both feature deeply cynical women and tedious moralizations on the unfairness of using physical beauty as the standard by which to judge women. Unfortunately, McCrumb's attempts to link them are largely unconvincing. Elizabeth's story merges feebly with Bill's when a fellow patient, a former cop, recognizes a picture of the house and hints at dark secrets in its owner's past. Elizabeth recruits her cousin Geoffrey, the most interesting character in this outing, to unearth what he can about Dolan. Securely ensconced in Bill's new offices as an interior decorator-cum-sleuth, Geoffrey faxes amusingly arch updates to Elizabeth, a welcome distraction for the reader from her grief, which feels clumsy and out of place.

The PMS Outlaws flounders in an uncomfortable net of cozy mystery, social commentary, and introspection. Let's hope McCrumb soon returns to the form that captivated readers of her Appalachian novels (She Walks These Hills, The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter, The Rosewood Casket). When she's on top of her game, she's absolutely unbeatable. --Kelly Flynn

From Publishers Weekly

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. (Sept.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Ballantine Books; 1st edition (September 5, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345382315
• ISBN-13: 978-0345382313
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,951,775 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I am an award-winning Southern writer. I am probably best known for my
Appalachian "Ballad" novels, set in the North Carolina/Tennessee mountains. These books include New York Times Best Sellers She Walks These Hills and The Rosewood Casket, which deal with the issue of the vanishing wilderness, and The Ballad of Frankie Silver, the story of the first woman hanged for murder in the state of North Carolina; The Songcatcher, a genealogy in music; and Ghost Riders, an account of the Civil War in the Appalachians.

My newest novel St. Dale, the Canterbury Tales set in NASCAR, was published by Kensington Books of New York in 2005, and is currently a nominee for the Library of Virginia Literary Award in Fiction and a finalist for its People's Choice Award.

Honors include: the 2003 Award for Literature given by the
East Tennessee Historical Society; AWA Outstanding Contribution to
Appalachian Literature Award; Chaffin Award for Achievement in Southern
Literature; Plattner Award for Short Story; and AWA's Best Appalachian
Novel.

I was the first writer-in-residence at King College in Tennessee. In 2001 I
served as fiction writer-in-residence at the WICE Conference in Paris, and
in 2005 I was honored as the writer of the year at the annual literary
celebration at Emory and Henry College. (And I was the first Southern writer to take along a NASCAR driver to that literary seminar. Thank you, Ward Burton!)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars I was entertained, despite the rather obvious flaws., September 15, 2001

By 

frumiousb "frumiousb" (Amsterdam, the Netherlands) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The PMS Outlaws : An Elizabeth MacPherson Novel (Mass Market Paperback)

Actually, I want to give credit where credit is due, McCrumb took on a very difficult topic in _The PMS Outlaws_. If she painted herself into a corner while doing so, that's not so very hard to understand.

Forensic Anthropologist Elizabeth MacPherson checks herself into a mental hospital to recover from what she sees as situational depression resulting from the disappearance of her husband at sea. The primary issue in the book, and what makes this such difficult material, is that what Elizabeth believes is the cure for her unhappiness and what actually is the cure turn out to be two very different things.

The other plots-- the Thelma & Louise characters, Bill's mysterious codger-in residence-- are sketchily drawn and clearly are meant to focus more as humorous counterbalance to Elizabeth's struggle. The problem is that the publisher also didn't have the courage to highlight that the book is much more about the emotional struggle than the mystery, so the expectations raised by the title and the back of the book aren't met by the story itself.

McCrumb remains a smart writer. I do think that she may have been out of her depth here (or too limited by the genre) for what she was trying to accomplish. But I find it necessary to applaud the effort.

20 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars NOT an Elizabeth MacPherson Novel, September 6, 2000

By 

Patrick Burnett "penngos" (San Francisco, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The PMS Outlaws: An Elizabeth MacPherson Novel (Hardcover)

Once upon a time, there was a mystery writer named Sharyn McCrumb, who wrote wonderfully quirky tales about a woman named Elizabeth MacPherson. Elizabeth was funny and charming and a student of fornesic anthropology, then a field exclusively for women. Elizabth's adventures were made more entertaining by appearances from her extended, Southern family, most of whom were eccentric, some of whom were downright mad.

As often happens with series mystery writers, McCrumb became tired of Elizabeth and tried to make her more interesting by killing her husband, which served only to send Elizabeth spiralling into a deep blue funk, where she remained for many unamusing years.

In the mean time, McCrumb began writing a new series, set in the Appalachian and Smoky Mountains. These were well-received, both by critics and readers, so Elizabeth and her family were shunned, relegated to the bottom of the idea-heap, revived only when McCrumb had something to say that was not suited to her new darlings.

From time to time, McCrumb trots out the MacPherson family, but the focus now is on brother Bill who has started his own law practice with partner A.P. Hill, a tough female attorney. Elizabeth still appears, but in a secondary role, which is odd, because the books are generally subtitled, "An Elizabeth MacPherson Novel", not "A Bill MacPherson and A.P. Hill Novel".

In "The PMS Outlaws", Bill buys an old house that comes equipped with its own creepy old man and A.P. Hill becomes interested in "The PMS Outlaws", who seduce and rob sexist pigs, then chain them naked in public places. Not only is one of the outlaws a former schoolmate of Hill's, she has stolen Hill's name, too! Finally, Elizabeth has checked herself into a mental institution to see if she can (finally) come to terms with her husband's death.

I can't deny that the writing here is amusing and engaging - I read the whole book in a single sitting. And I do like Bill and AP as characters. But I miss the old Elizabeth and I pine for the days when McCrumb wrote mysteries, not hastily-written bits of Southern gothic. This is a good read and a fine novel. It's just not "an Elizabeth MacPherson novel".

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An easy and enjoyable read., May 21, 2001

By 

Mona Gracen (New York State, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The PMS Outlaws: An Elizabeth MacPherson Novel (Hardcover)

This may not have been one of Sharyn McCrumb's best books but I personally found it entirely enjoyable and easy to read. And I couldn't put it down. It's not a nail-biting thriller of a mystery like some of her other books, but I still found it very good. I actually enjoyed seeing Elizabeth mourn the loss of her husband - she seemed a little more human and less irritating than I have tended to find her in the past. I look forward to the next Elizabeth McPherson mystery - and I wonder if Bill and A.P. will ever get together... At any rate, bottom line, if you are looking for a hard core mystery novel, you are going to be disappointed (I'd hazard a guess that you'd be happier with the newest Ballad mystery by McCrumb set to come out this month). If you're looking for a novel wherein Elizabeth actively solves a mystery, you're going to be disappointed. But if you just are looking for an entertaining book about characters you already know and love with a wonderfully feminist slant, you'll thoroughly enjoy this book.