He Was Her Man

Samantha Adams #6

by Shankman

Sarah Shankman has been acclaimed as an "Elmore Leonard with a Southern accent" (Lia Matera), who "catches the dark, joyous eccentricity of the American South better than any writer since Pat Conroy" (Anne Rivers Siddons). Now Sarah Shankman's savvy amateur sleuth and former crime reporter Samantha Adams is back, in the thick of the most rollicking mystery ever to trouble the waters of Arkansas's self-proclaimed Sin City.... Her faithful dog riding shotgun, Sam Adams hugged the rain-slick two-lane and sang the blues all five hundred miles from New Orleans to Hot Springs, Arkansas, where truth-talking Olive Adair - sole proprietor of the Gas 'N Grub just outside town - was the first person all day to lift her spirits. Sam's sexy boyfriend, Harry, had just taken up with someone appallingly young and impossibly skinny. Sam was roaring into Hot Springs to cry on the shoulder of her best friend, Kitty - on hand for their lottery-winning-friend Jinx Watson's big blowout engagement party. Sam still hadn't forgotten that long ago Jinx stole her best beau, and amidst the partygoers' big hair and bugle beads, she was not exactly sorry to note that twice-divorced Jinx's new fiance sported a balding head, a cigar, and a name like a pool hustler. But when the groom is kidnapped for a million-dollar ransom, and delightful old Olive Adair simply disappears, Sam can't help but sally out to investigate - if only to seek Olive, and grist for American Weird, the book she's writing. Olive's Gas 'N Grub is deserted except for the owner's exceedingly gracious ex-con grandson, and a hound whose tracking stamina is second only to her desire to find Olive. At McClard's Barbecue, Jinx is hiding behind movie-star sunglasses and nursing a smoldering rage at her kidnapped hubby-to-be. Meanwhile, a beautiful young grifter lurks around the Palace Hotel; Hot Springs natives can't stop gabbing about a mysterious personage called You Know Who; and Sam is beginning to think that "weird" is like

Genres: Mystery, Fiction

288 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 1993

Reviews

[Cindy Grossi]

3.5 - I am an Arkansas native, so I loved the Hot Springs setting from someone who apparently really knows the area. Light, fun mystery perfect for summer reading. I will say in a note to the author, you could have cut out the "shaggy hound tale"; it really got boring.

I liked it well enough that I am going to find others in this series.

Also, if anyone goes as far as to check how long it took me to read this, it took forever because I was interrupted in the most wonderful way by a 10 day visit from my two grandsons and their parents.

[Cathy]

Sam Adams without her usual cohort (Harry) manages to become involved with murder on the way to a friend's engagement party.

[Gloria Mccracken]

This is another old reread, and it holds up just fine. I read it so long ago that I really didn't remember much about it. It's a typical Sarah Shankman mystery -- plenty of weird characters and strange goings on, laced with a liberal dose of humor. (The chapter with the tall tales about various coon dogs was read-aloud funny).

This one isn't much of a mystery (it's abundantly clear whodunnit within the first few chapters) but more of a sting. There are these two con artists, see, and...you really have to read it to catch the flavor. Samantha Adams, the protagonist of the series, is in Hot Springs, having left her home in New Orleans because of a love affair gone bad, attending the wedding shower of a frenemy from her youth -- a former beauty queen lottery winner -- when she means a likeable and interesting old lady running a gas station/convenience store. The old lady disappears and so does the prospective groom, the latter kidnapped. Anyway, you can kind of catch the drift of what sort of book this is. Pretty much preposterous, of course, but fine good fun with a plot that has so many twists and turns that you don't even care that you already know the murderer.

[Katherine Clark]

I finished all my fiction library books, so went looking through my own shelves for something to read. This was a new writer for me and several books into the series. It takes place in Hot Springs, Arkansas, and the description of Arkansas was wonderful. I enjoyed the often eccentric characters and the Southern sensibility, especially in terms of issues of race and feminism. On the other hand, this read more as a caper novel than a mystery, and while I occasionally like caper novels, I mainly don't. Add to that that I didn't really care much about any of the characters (so the love triangle with the protag just didn't do much for me) and stakes were low because I didn't care about the characters, and well, I won't be reading any more of this series. It is fine, and somewhat entertaining, but not my cup of tea.

[Sandra Holladay]

An ok book, too many unresolved issues at the end, and very wordy throughout -- but I noticed that in her other book I read. I picked up four books in the series at my local used book store and will read the others, but won't be picking up any more.

[Helen Fleischer]

fast paced, good humor, think I read a later one out of order

[D Kaiser]

Another good mystery series. I don't think she is writing any more with Samantha Adams as the main character, but all the ones with her in it I've liked.

[Regine]

Fun.