Secret pen name for Mary Kay Andrews
932150
I am a big fan of Mary Kay Andrews and saw that she wrote these books under a different name. They are good and very different than the normal books she writes and are not as lighthearted. They are still worth a read if you can find them.
987263
Mary Kay Andrews comes through with another winner!  If you are looking for the perfect after Christmas read! Check out The Fixer Upper!
Synopsis:
Dempsey and her friends are watching the television at the bar.  The news does not look good. She watches her boss Alex Hodder on the screen with Congressman Licata.  The headline Law firm brides congressman for vote.  After seeing this Dempsey suddenly finds herself without a job and under investigation.  Her father comes up with the perfect solution.  He would like her to renovate an old house that he inherited Songbird in Guthrie Georgia.  There is one little catch it comes with something else.  Will Dempsey be able to renovate Songbird?  Will the little surprise that comes with the house keep her from moving forward?  Will she help the FBI?
My Thoughts:
Another great read novel by Mary Kay Andrews! I first saw this novel when Mary Kay Andrews was on tour and met Mary Kay for the first time.  I listened to this novel and it was narrated very well.  The story has great humor and plot.
One aspect of Mary Kay Andrews writing is the setting.  The setting for this story is Georgetown and Guthrie Georgia.  The only thing I can tell you about where Guthrie is that it is close to Griffin Georgia.  For those of you who don't know Georgia area well it is near Macon.  She is very descriptive about what you can expect if you happen to visit the area.
Let me introduce you to Birdsong the house mentioned in the novel.  I am not very handy myself but I found myself wanting to know more about the houses renovation.  I also was interested in the other stories within the plot such as Ella Kate, and what would eventually happen to her.
The reader will not be disappointed!
2365721
mary hahn is a very talented author with a creative mind . this book tells a story about a boy that visits his aunt for this summer.  he finds a picture of aunt blyths friends brother. he is an exact twin of andrew aka drew . they switch places because andrew (one from picture) has dipthermia . he says that swithcing places will cure his illness . it was a trick andrew doesnt want to trade back . they make a  bet the first time drew wins they switch back for keeps.
4337792
I absolutely recommend this author for fans of Sue Grafton. It is edgy and new.  And love the NY East Village vibe. I have also read the next book and yes please continue with this character!
2424537
I love anything by Mary Kay Andrews and this was no exception.  Wonderful Lowcountry tale with some laugh-out-loud moments--as usual.
3044268
At age six, Kay Lansing accompanied her father Jonathan to work at the Carrington estate. While there, she snuck into the house and overheard two people arguing in the chapel. A few weeks later, Jonathan Lansing disappears.

Fast-forward twenty-two years. After meeting with Peter Carrington to set up a fundraiser, Kay falls in love with and marries the millionaire. But shortly after their honeymoon, Peter is arrested for the murder of Susan Althorp, a neighbor who had disappeared twenty-two years earlier, the same night Kay overheard the conversation in the house. Peter maintains his innocence, despite the police finding Susan and Jonathan's bodies on the property, but when Kay catches him sleepwalking, she begins to wonder if he is as innocent as he claims.

Did Peter kill Susan Althorp and Kay's father? Or is he being framed? And what about the conversation Kay overheard as a child? With a suspicious step-brother, two workers who seem to be nervous around the police, and an angry ambassador, there are plenty of suspects to choose from.

I've often lamented the fact that many of Mary Higgins Clark's books are similar in plot and characters. This novel, I must say, is a departure from her usual storyline. While the title may be "I Heard That Song Before", I can say that this is one plot I have not read before!
4128887
I wish Mary Kay Andrews would go back to writing the way she did with the Savannah Blues series. The characters were funny and smart and the stories so much more interesting. This book could have been 100 pages shorter if all the filler repetition had been edited out.
3499718
This post is written a week after the author, Sue Grafton,  passed away. I've read every book from A-Y. Kinsey and her friends have become a part of my literary family and I'm feeling the loss already.  So long Susan. Thank you for sharing your story telling talent with your faithful readers all these years. You will be missed.
3105188
I'm a huge Mary Kay Andrews fan and have read all her books.  This short story was, honestly, a waste of time.  I cannot recommend it.
1721913
It was the first time reading a Mary Kay Andrews books, and it definitely won't be my last. Can't wait to dig into another one of her books!
4084881
I found my first Mary Kay Andrews Book at my local library. I believe my first book was Savannah Blues and I was hooked I needed my Mary Kay Andrews fix. I've read all of her books(except her new one Spring Fever) and every time someone from my local library asks me to recommend a book. I tell them to pick up a copy of any of Mary Kay Andrews books and you will not be disappointed. Now when I go to the shelf to reread one of her books the shelf is empty. I'm glad everyone is enjoying them as much I love them. I need to ask my hubby to buy me some of her books for Christmas, so I have my own personal collection.
3483213
I always love Sue Grafton's alphabet mysteries.  I read this one just before she died. I will really miss Kinsey.  It's so sad that the alphabet will now end with Y.
2692835
Jessica Mitford (b. 1917, d. 1996) was born into the British aristocracy, but she married an American and as an investigative journalist she often took on the establishment, championing the under-dog, decency, and common sense.  Today she is best known for her book "The American Way of Death", in which she exposed the unctuous, heavy-handed profiteering of the funerary industry.

POISON PENMANSHIP collects seventeen of Mitford's journalistic pieces, from 1957 to 1979.  After each article Mitford offers some after-the-fact comments about such things as the circumstances that led her to write the piece, how she went about her investigation, and the waves she made with that particular article.  These post-mortems usually are more interesting than the pieces themselves.  Students of muckraking journalism may get more out of the articles than I did, but for me, forty and more years later, most of them are little more than historical curiosities. It goes to show, I suppose, that most muckraking has a relatively short half-life.

Among the three pieces that I did not yawn over is "Let Us Now Appraise Famous Writers".  In it, Mitford burst the bubble of the Famous Writers School, where literary-wannabes could find out whether they have the potential to be a published writer (90% were so validated) and for $900 (in 1970 dollars) take a correspondence course that would provide them the skills and teach them the ropes.  The come-on was provided by fifteen Famous Writers, led by Bennett Cerf and also including Faith Baldwin, Bruce Catton, Clifton Fadiman, and Rod Serling, all of whom, Mitford found out, were compensated with corporate stock.  A typical magazine ad featured Bennett Cerf, "his kindly, humorous face aglow with sincerity", confiding benevolently to the reader, "If you want to write, my colleagues and I would like to test your writing aptitude.  We'll help you find out whether you can be trained to become a successful writer."  But did the fifteen Famous Writers actually screen the applicants?  When Mitford asked Cerf that question, he exploded:  "If anyone thinks we've got time to look at the aptitude tests that come in, they're out of their mind!"  Nor did the Famous Fifteen stoop to instruction.  Mitford learned that the actual "teaching faculty" of 55 were housed in cubicles and provided feedback by choosing appropriate comments by number from a notebook; the selected numbers were then converted into corresponding paragraphs by a computer-typewriter and sent on to the student.  The ratio of "instructors" to students was 1 to 1182.

The Famous Writers School was the principal cash cow in an array of instructional programs (including the Evelyn Wood Speed Reading Course) owned by a public company, FAS International.  In the months following Mitford's July 1970 expos&eacute;, the stock of FAS International fell from 35 to 5, and then in May 1971 the corporation entered bankruptcy.  Mitford reports that of all her articles, "Let Us Now Appraise Famous Writers" was the one that provided her the most pleasure; furthermore, it was "one of the few clear-cut successes, however temporary, of my muckraking career."

Not earth-shattering stuff, to be sure, but I enjoyed learning about one instance in which bow-tied Bennett Cerf of sanctimonious bonhomie ended up with egg on his face.  The other two pieces that I enjoyed concerned Mitford's refusal to provide her fingerprints in order to teach a course in 1973 at San Jose State University and her public revenge (in "New York Magazine") against a stuffy New York restaurant that had overcharged and mistreated her and then, in a Trump-like gambit of attempted deflection, had initiated a campaign of defamatory comments about her.

POISON PENMANSHIP originally was published in 1979.  In 2010 New York Review Books re-published it in this edition.  It is less a "classic" than many NYRB re-issues.
156305
This book was just ok for me. I liked it, but it didn't grab me like some of Mary Kay Andrews' other books have (I especially loved her Callahan Garrity series she wrote under her real name. I mourn the loss of those books!). I did like this book better than Deep Dish and Fixer Upper, but only by a bit. I feel like these books are just getting to be too predictable, like MKA is filling in a template.

It was an ok book, but I wish I'd either waited for it in paperback or checked it out from the library.
1020270
I read every one of her books!  I love Mary Kay Andrews!
642469
Once again, Mary Kay Andrews has written a fun read.  I like her humor, the "average" people and their normal ups and downs.  Intrigue when the detective is working on a case.  Like a good "recipe" not too much of anyone ingredient.
1502090
M.C. Beaton is one of my favorite writers. I love all of her series. Hamish Macbeth, Agatha Raisin, and her early works I can get under the name of Mary Chesney.