Just when it seems that the denizens of Maggody, Arkansas, and their chief of police, Arly Hanks, have seen everything, author Joan Hess manages to find a way to embroil them in yet another hilarious adventure. This time around, Ruby Bee, Estelle, and their big hair have embarked on a cut-rate package tour to Graceland to pay homage to the King. Before the end of the tour, one of the other pilgrims is found dead outside her hotel room, Ruby Bee is in the hospital, and Mayor Jim Bob Buchanon has been arrested for murder. Arly drives through the night to bring order out of chaos and make sure all the citizens of Maggody return home safely--with or without their dignity intact. As usual, there are more laughs than at a log-rolling festival--Brother Verber's hymn listing sins from A to Z (to the tune of Gilligan's Island) is particularly choice.

Joan Hess has made quite a reputation for herself and garnered several awards (including Agatha and Anthony nominations) with this series set in a wide spot in the road in northwest Arkansas. Misery Loves Maggody is the 11th and continues the saga of the dull-witted Buchanons, the Voice of the Almighty Lord Assembly Hall, and Arly herself. Typically, the murders and Arly's (occasionally muddled) course to their solution are really the icing on the cake of these rich parodies of Southern Living. Although Hess's wit is a bit sharper when her cast of characters sticks closer to home, as they do in Martians in Maggody or Miracles in Maggody, an Elvis sighting or two fits right in with the general wackiness and lovable mayhem. --K.A. Crouch

From Publishers Weekly
Fans of the Maggody (Arkansas) series (Malice in Maggody), and there are many, will revel in this entry, which boasts the usual cast of rednecks, salacious preachers and inbred miscreants who keep Ariel "Arly" Hanks, the town's female chief of police, ever alert. Arly's mother, Ruby Bee, is taking a four-day Elvis Presley Pilgrimage with her best friend, Estelle Oppers. Their five fellow travelers prove to be a smarmy and acrimonious group, and it quickly becomes apparent that they are not quite who they say they are. When Ruby Bee is hospitalized with some disturbing symptoms, Arly becomes involved in an investigation that soon encompasses the mysterious death of one group member and the disappearance of another. Total mayhem ensues as Estelle, whose egregiously unlawful behavior can be classified as an art form, tries to solve the mystery on her own, leaving Arly to clean up the mess?which grows to ensnare the mayor of Maggody, his shrewish wife and a preacher with his own agenda. Hess does again here what she has done so expertly before: keep a firm hand on outrageous characters whose peccadilloes are worthy of a French farce. Agent, Dominick Abel. Mystery Guild main selection. Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Maggody police chief Arly Hanks (The Maggody Militia, Dutton, 1997) investigates after out-of-town police arrest the mayor of Maggody in connection with the death of a riverboat showgirl. More Arkansas-oriented enjoyment for series fans.Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews
Misery may love Maggody, Ark., but police chief Arly Hanks's mom, Ruby Bee, is itching to leave the no-horse town (pop. 755) together with her crony Estelle Oppers for a pilgrimage to Graceland, complete with stops at Elvis's birthplace in Tupelo, the Elvis museum and chapel, several Elvis souvenir shops, and a climactic dinner with entertainment provided by a bevy of Elvis impersonators. The only trouble is that the package tour they've booked through a fly-by-night local lands them in a heartbre ak hotel in Memphis before whisking them offalong with their tour companions: a pair of female entertainers, an eloping couple, and a waspish professor of popular cultureto The Luck of the Draw Casino and Hotel in Tunica, Miss., instead of Tupelo, spellin g disaster for the couple's plans to get hitched in the Graceland chapel and boding even worse for Ruby Bee (who'll end up in the hospital with an undiagnosed malady) and for one of the entertainers (who skips the hospital and goes straight to the morgue) . So Arly has to tear herself away from the current round of chicken-fried madness in Maggodythe satanist who's desecrating the Mount Zion church by leaving barrettes behind, the continuing follies of the brain-dead Buchanon family (The Maggody Militia, 1 997, etc.)to show the Tunica police just how it's done. The result is as marvelously giddy as anything in Hess's first ten chronicles of Maggody, with a core of logic as surprising as a Cracker Jack prize. As even the Tunica cops admit, ``This is better than a miniseries.'' -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Review
Sharyn McCrumb Joan Hess is the patron saint of comic mystery.

Book Description
Misery Loves Maggody And you will too. Murder and mayhem have never been so hilarious as in the sleepy little town of Maggody, Arkansas. Population 755. And in this newest entry to the Joan Hess series, there's twice the fun when some of Maggody's most beloved inhabitants venture out of state. Meanwhile, all manner of unrest also unfolds on the familiar Maggody home front. When beleaguered chief of police Arly Hanks hears that her mother, Ruby Bee, and best friend, Estelle Oppers, are headed for Memphis on a four-day Elvis Pilgrimage, she thinks she may be getting a break that is long overdue. But before the "pilgrims" are past the airport on the way out of Faberville, the fur starts flying, and soon the trip is completely stalled by a variety of deadly doings. Estelle calls home to report that Ruby Bee has collapsed and is in the local hospital, and even before Arly's seen the delta dawn, one of the other clients on the tour is found dead beneath the eighth-floor balcony of the hotel. Worse still, the balcony from which she plunged turns out to be none other than the room of a prominent Maggody citizen, who has been hauled off to the local jail. What's more, Estelle's pretty darn sure the tour van is being followed by thugs in an ominous black car -- and another body's about to be laid to rest in Graceland. Back home things aren't much better and certainly no quieter, so Arly Hanks will have to be at her most resourceful to restore the peace once again to the inhabitants of Maggody -- both those at home and those who have roamed beyond the town limits. Variously described by critics as a "rollicking tour de force" (Boston Magazine), "Bawdy entertainment" (Kirkus Reviews), "Hilarious" (St. Louis Post-Dispatch), "delectable and continually surprising" (The New York Times Book Review), Joan Hess's Maggody series is one of a kind and just keeps getting better.

About the Author
Joan Hess has written twenty-two mysteries for which she has received numerous awards, including the American Mystery Award, the Agatha Award, the Drood Review Readers' Award, and the McCavity Award. A former President of the American Crime Writers League, she is currently President of the Arkansas Mystery Writers Alliance. Joan Hess lives in Fayetteville, Arkansas, where she is at work on her next book.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Murder and mayhem have never been so hilarious as in the sleepy little town of Maggody, Arkansas. Population 755. And in this newest entry to the Joan Hess series, there's twice the fun when some of Maggody's most beloved inhabitants venture out of state. Meanwhile, all manner of unrest also unfolds on the familiar Maggody home front. When beleaguered chief of police Arly Hanks hears that her mother, Ruby Bee, and best friend, Estelle Oppers, are headed for Memphis on a four-day Elvis Pilgrimage, she thinks she may be getting a break that is long overdue. But before the "pilgrims" are past the airport on the way out of Faberville, the fur starts flying, and soon the trip is completely stalled by a variety of deadly doings. Estelle calls home to report that Ruby Bee has collapsed and is in the local hospital, and even before Arly's seen the delta dawn, one of the other clients on the tour is found dead beneath the eighth-floor balcony of the hotel. Worse still, the balcony from which she plunged turns out to be none other than the room of a prominent Maggody citizen, who has been hauled off to the local jail. What's more, Estelle's pretty darn sure the tour van is being followed by thugs in an ominous black car - and another body's about to be laid to rest in Graceland. Back home things aren't much better and certainly no quieter, so Arly Hanks will have to be at her most resourceful to restore the peace once again to the inhabitants of Maggody - both those at home and those who have roamed beyond the town limits.

FROM THE CRITICS

Marilyn Stasio - New York Times Book Review

...[B]est appreciated for its uproarious cast of characters and for the scenic tour it offers of places where a hound dog would fear to tread.

Library Journal

Maggody police chief Arly Hanks (The Maggody Militia, Dutton, 1997) investigates after out-of-town police arrest the mayor of Maggody in connection with the death of a riverboat showgirl. More Arkansas-oriented enjoyment for series fans.

Marilyn Stasio

...[B]est appreciated for its uproarious cast of characters and for the scenic tour it offers of places where a hound dog would fear to tread. -- The New York Times Book Review

Kirkus Reviews

Misery may love Maggody, Ark., but police chief Arly Hanks's mom, Ruby Bee, is itching to leave the no-horse town (pop. 755) together with her crony Estelle Oppers for a pilgrimage to Graceland, complete with stops at Elvis's birthplace in Tupelo, the Elvis museum and chapel, several Elvis souvenir shops, and a climactic dinner with entertainment provided by a bevy of Elvis impersonators. The only trouble is that the package tour they've booked through a fly-by-night local lands them in a heartbreak hotel in Memphis before whisking them off-along with their tour companions: a pair of female entertainers, an eloping couple, and a waspish professor of popular culture-to The Luck of the Draw Casino and Hotel in Tunica, Miss., instead of Tupelo, spelling disaster for the couple's plans to get hitched in the Graceland chapel and boding even worse for Ruby Bee (who'll end up in the hospital with an undiagnosed malady) and for one of the entertainers (who skips the hospital and goes straight to the morgue). So Arly has to tear herself away from the current round of chicken-fried madness in Maggody-the satanist who's desecrating the Mount Zion church by leaving barrettes behind, the continuing follies of the brain-dead Buchanon family (The Maggody Militia)-to show the Tunica police just how it's done.