Rating: 
Summary: Excellent Book
Review: I read this for a mystery book discussion group, and we all liked it very much. McCrumb does an excellent job of putting you in the Appalachians and of detailing the various characters in this novel. Even with the powers which the oldwoman Nora Bonesteel possesses, this story comes off as believable. As I said the characters come off as real in both their flaws and attributes. This story has multiple plots occurring at the same time and does change frequently from one scene to another, but this does not take to story, but rather adds to your interest in each circumstance. Be aware that this is a novel, and not strictly a mystery. The mystery does not take center stage but its solution is well worth the trip thru Appalachia. The most rewarding thing is looking back at the end of the book and seeing things that pointed to the end. I felt much the way I did after I had seen the "Sixth Sense". Don't pass on this book.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Book
Review: I read this for a mystery book discussion group, and we all liked it very much. McCrumb does an excellent job of putting you in the Appalachians and of detailing the various characters in this novel. Even with the powers which the oldwoman Nora Bonesteel possesses, this story comes off as believable. As I said the characters come off as real in both their flaws and attributes. This story has multiple plots occurring at the same time and does change frequently from one scene to another, but this does not take to story, but rather adds to your interest in each circumstance. Be aware that this is a novel, and not strictly a mystery. The mystery does not take center stage but its solution is well worth the trip thru Appalachia. The most rewarding thing is looking back at the end of the book and seeing things that pointed to the end. I felt much the way I did after I had seen the "Sixth Sense". Don't pass on this book.
Rating: 
Summary: NOT A MYSTERY!!!!!!
Review: I really don't see how this can be called a mystery. It started off well enough but then went down hill the rest of the way. The book was fair but not what advertized to be. Please read the above statments by the publisher to see what book is about. If you want a book that will leave you sad, depressed and need a good cry, then this is the book for you. If you want a good mystery, then go somewhere else.
Rating: 
Summary: A good novel but not really a mystery.
Review: I really enjoyed this book. It had great story lines and fantastic characters. The emotions were well perceived you often felt the same raw emotion that so many of these people felt. But, it was not a mystrey novel. There was no whodunnit or suspense involved. I don't believe that this book should be classified as a mystery book. But, read it anyway for a good story but not a mystery story!
Rating: 
Summary: It was alright...
Review: I started reading this book b/c of it the title. I love sort of off beat book titles and this was certainly different. It was depressing and didn't make a whole big bunch of sense. However I was intrigued with the writing and plot quality. I became enthralled with the SEER stuff and things of the supernatural. Being from the dark woods of the Ozarks I can totally respect those points of the book.
Rating:
Summary: A suberb, richly detailed work
Review: McCrumb continues her love affair with Appalachia, and it's a knockout. Suspenseful, moving, expertly written. When most of us hear the word "Appalachia" we think "trailer park;" McCrumb goes to great lenghths -- successfully -- to dispel the cliches and stereotypes. Her characters are intelligent, well-spoken and deeply realized. An all-around hit.
Rating:
Summary: not her best
Review: McCrumb has a tendency to toss in one completely unrealistic plot device to keep her stories moving in the way she wants them to go. In The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter, it's the ridiculously non-existant guardianship of the Underhill teens. Can you say, "Ward of the state?" Also, what was with the whole thing about the Judds? Particularly since all the facts were wrong. McCrumb has Martha tell Spencer that the liver is the one organ that doesn't get better, when reality is exactly the opposite. The liver is the ONLY regenerative organ in the body. Also, what's with the talk of the hepatitis coming from bad road food? If you don't want to go into the modes of transmission of hepatitis C, don't make it a subplot. As someone with a family member with hep C, the misinformation here really annoyed me. It's horribly nitpicky to say it affected my enjoyment of the rest of the book, but I kept thinking, what other facts has she gotten completely wrong? not her best effort at all.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful!
Review: Nora Bonesteel, the wise woman of the Tennessee mountains is what her Celtic forebears would recognize as an "edge witch", one who patrols the boundaries between life and death, good and evil, the supernatural and the mundane. In this novel sorrow comes to the mountain community in the guise of an murder/suicide on a remote farm and via a polluted river that brings death into the valley. Nora Bonesteel, with her graveyard quilt and her herbal remedies does what she can do to protect the ordinary folk from tragedy. This is a wonderful novel to trace the continuance of Celtic heritage and folkways into America's Eastern mountains which were settled by Britain's Highlanders.
Rating:
Summary: Better than most.
Review: Sharyn McCrumb has managed to write a good mystery without clinical sex and bad language and only a minimum of violence. In fact, this is not exactly a mystery, but more like a novel that happens to deal with death. And does it ever deal with death! The author also manages to create characters who are not stereotypes. We do wonder, however, what happened to Sheriff Arrowood who had such a harmless crush on Naomi Judd. The little orphan Robsart boy was hardly a character at all.. The bond of friendship between the two old men seems contrived. The author is obviously interested in sociology. The style is not memorable.
Rating:
Summary: An engrossing page-turner with heart
Review: Sharyn McCrumb has now written several books of regional mystery fiction set in the mountains of Tennessee and North Carolina. Of these "ballad mysteries," this is one of the very best. It involves several interwoven stories of tragedy, death, and the tenacity of the human spirit. In writing *The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter*, McCrumb has shown herself to be a skilled storyteller indeed, able to keep the several threads of plot moving simultaneously without confusing the reader nor compromising the nuances of the various tales she tells. Along the way, she successfully conveys to readers her convictions regarding some sad realities of Appalachian life: the isolation, the poverty, the damage to health and environment caused by industrial pollution, and the all-too-familiar spectre of tragedy and death that stalk this ever-struggling region. At the same time, she celebrates the beauty of the mountains and shows that the pride and dignity of its people are something to be cherished and admired. Yes, the prose itself is perhaps too simple, direct, and unadorned for this to be considered a truly serious work of literature, and some of the elements of "mystery" were not hard to figure out well in advance of their being revealed. However, I enjoyed every page of this novel, and it will definitely inspire me to read more of McCrumb's Appalachian writings.
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