Best Selling Books by Sharyn McCrumb

Edgar Award winner Sharyn McCrumb brings you her sixth Elizabeh MacPherson mystery novel. The unsinkable Elizabeth is on tour of England''s most famous murder sites, when Rowan Rover, the group leader, is quietly asked to commit murder. He does, of course, but not without misgivings--not the least of which is having Elizabeth MacPherson, canny observer and all-around murder spoiler, on his tail... "Sharyn McCrunb is definitely a rising star in the New Golden Age of mystery fiction. I look forward to reading her for a long time to come." Elizabeth Peters

The Dale Earnhardt Memorial Pilgrimage is the last trip Judge Bekasu Holifield would have chosen for her vacation. But this year it''s her sister Justine''s turn to make their plans, and soon Bekasu''s boarding a silver cruise bus for a tour of Southern stock car speedways with Justine, their cousin Cayle, and a group of strangers--all of whose lives have somehow been touched by the legendary racer they never met. . . For Shane McKee, the tour is a chance to get married at the speedway with his hero there in spirit. New York stockbroker Terence Palmer has made the trip to honor his only link with the father he never knew. Rev. Bill Knight, whose hobby is medieval pilgrimages, agrees to chaperone a dying child--and finds himself on a strangely familiar journey of faith and devotion. Bekasu begins connecting with her fellow travelers in unexpected ways. But she''s not the only one. As the bus rolls down an uncertain road, prayers will be answered, secrets will be revealed, bonds will be forged, and no one will leave this journey of self-discovery quite the same. "One of McCrumb''s finer achievements." --Denver Post & Rocky Mountain News "A wild ride! Sharyn McCrumb has done it again." --Ward Burton, winner of the Daytona 500

The New York Times Bestseller Set in the Appalachian wilderness and blending legends and folklore with high suspense, this stellar novel, The Ballad of Frankie Silver, is considered one of McCrumb''s crowning achievements. In 1833 Frankie Silver was an eighteen-year-old girl convicted of murder in Burke County, North Carolina. Through a detailed investigation, the local sheriff, and soon all the townsfolk, discover reason to question her guilt---but the wheels of justice were mercilessly unstoppable, and she was hanged. Now, more than a century later, another woman is convicted of murder in the lush hills of Tennessee. Her life is in the hands of Spencer Arrowood, a man who begins to discover that the convictions of these two women have deep and haunting parallels. Although Frankie''s fate cannot be changed, there is still time to alter the fate of another innocent woman. In a voice that could only be Sharyn McCrumb''s, the worlds of these two murders, these two women, intersect in this densely plotted and lyrical novel—and characters, generations, and history are breathlessly painted against an Appalachian canvas.

The ghost of a murdered pioneer woman wanders the Appalachian hills, searching for a way home. But others, including a city-bred scholar and an escaped killer, also roam these hills, each undertaking a very personal journey. When their paths cross, a long-hidden mystery is revealed, and with it a secret that will rock the Appalachians to their very core.

A Literary Tour de Force: Murder, Media Frenzy, and Mountain Magic in Depression-Era Virginia "Ms. McCrumb writes with quiet fire and maybe a little mountain magic. . . . She plucks the mysteries from people''s lives and works these dark narrative threads into Appalachian legends older than the hills. Like every true storyteller, she has the Sight."—The New York Times Book Review In 1935, a beautiful young schoolteacher is accused of murdering her coal-miner father in a Virginia mountain community. National journalists descend on Wise County, intent upon exonerating the defendant and stereotyping the mountain community to satisfy their Depression-era readers. But local cub reporter Carl Jennings writes what he sees: an ordinary town and a defendant who is probably guilty. The Devil Amongst the Lawyers resonates with the present: an economic depression, a deadly Japanese earthquake, the rise of political fanatics, and a media culture turning news stories into soap operas for the masses. This literary mystery continues the Ballard saga by examining social issues that go well beyond the fate of one defendant. It is a testament to Sharyn McCrumb''s lyrical and poetic writing about the mountain South.

The book that started it all for Edgar Award winner Sharyn McCrumb''s widely acclaimed series featuring amateur sleuth Elizabeth MacPherson. When delicate Eileen Chandler is set to marry, her family fears the man is a fortune hunter. Thank goodness, Eileen''s cousin Elizabeth MacPherson comes early for support. Unfortunately, Elizabeth also has some detecting to do, as a dead body is found, and none of the wedding party is above suspicion.... "A good deal of suspense...McCrumb writes with a sharp-pointed pen." LOS ANGELES TIMES

Sheriff Spencer Arrowood keeps the peace in his small Tennessee town most of the time. Every once in a while, though, something goes wrong. When 1960s folksinger Peggy Muryan moves to town seeking solitude and a career comeback, and she receives a postcard with a threatening message, her idyll is shattered. Then a local girl who looks like Peggy vanishes without a trace. Although she was once famous, Peggy has no fondness for the old times. Those days are best left forgotten for Spencer Arrowood, too. But sometimes the past can''t rest, and those who try to forget it are doomed to relive it....

Four brothers gather at their family''s mountain farm to build a coffin for their dying father, Randall Stargill. Once he passes, they face the dilemma of whether to keep or sell the land that has been in their faimily since 1790. Land is more than a place to the people of the southern mountains--land is who they are. For Nora Bonesteel, Appalachian wise woman and a former sweetheart to the father whose death poses a different problem: the small box that she must bury with him. When the Stargills open the box and find the bones of a child, Sheriff Spencer Arrowood becomes involved. And when Nora then refuses to reveal where she got the bones or to who they belonged, the mountain descends into disarray, and a long history of secrets and tensions begins to unravel. In a style both lyrical and gorgeously detailed, with a narrative that flows from Native American lore and the frontier tales of Daniel Boone up to the sharpest and keenly realized landscapes of Appalachia today, The Rosewood Casket is a hauntingly beautiful elegy on the loss of the land, a tragedy repeated many times in the history of Appalachia--Back cover.

Folksinger Lark McCourry retraces the history of a family song, which she had heard from her North Carolina relatives as a child, back to eighteenth-century Scotland to young Malcolm MacQuarry.

In Depression-era Appalachia, a desperate sheriff’s widow takes on her late husband’s job and discovers that a prayer the devil answers comes at a terrible price. The year is 1936 and society provides no safety net for newly widowed Ellie Robbins, a woman in a small mountain town who suddenly has to support her family on her own. She’s not trained to be a teacher or a nurse, the only respectable careers for a woman. So in order to care for her children, Ellie takes the only job available: that of her late husband, the sheriff. Ellie has long proven that she can handle herself, and her role as sheriff is largely symbolic. Yet the wariness of her male subordinates and the townspeople is palpable. Soon, as dark secrets come to light, Ellie is forced to grapple with the tenuous ties she shares with a convicted killer and the small-town superstitions that have plagued her for years. When a condemned killer is sentenced to death for his crime, her opportunity to do so presents itself in a way she never expected. There’s one task that only a sheriff can carry out: the execution of a convicted prisoner. Atmospheric and suspenseful, Prayers the Devil Answers is rich with the same masterful attention to historical detail and captivating folklore that you cherished in McCrumb’s renowned Ballad novels. Her luscious writing brings her unforgettable characters to life with the “pure poetry” (The New York Times Book Review) that defines her astounding novels. Prayers the Devil Answers is a mesmerizing depiction of one woman’s tenacity and strength in even the most harrowing of circumstances.

A sci-fi convention gets a dose of true crime in this Edgar Award-winning mystery by the New York Times bestselling author of the Ballad novels. When Virginia Tech professor James Owen Mega wrote a fictional account of his real-life research, he hardly expected it to get published. But when a publisher changed the title of his novel to Bimbos of the Death Sun, James—under the pen name Jay Omega—becomes an overnight sci-fi star. Invited to the annual fan convention Rubicon, James is both a fish out of water and a Guest of Honor among the Trekkies and sword-wielding cosplayers. But he''s not the only VIP at the overrun hotel. Revered fantasy author Appin Dungannon never misses a Rubicon—or a chance to belittle his legions of devotees. But when Dungannon turns up dead, police wonder if a die-hard fan finally turned to murder. As the list of suspects grows and hucksters hunt for the victim''s autograph, James devises an ingenious way to catch a killer.

When forensic anthropologist Elizabeth MacPherson becomes the official P.I. for her brother Bill''s fledgling Virginia law firm, she quickly takes on two complex cases. Eleanor Royden, a perfect lawyer''s wife for twenty years, has shot her ex-husband and his wife in cold blood. And Donna Jean Morgan is implicated in the death of her Bible-thumping bigamist husband. Bill''s feminist firebrand partner, A. P. Hill, does her damnedest for Eleanor, an abused wife in denial, and Bill gallantly defends Donna Jean. Meanwhile, Elizabeth''s forensic expertise, including her special knowledge of poisons, gives her the most challenging case of her career. . . .

This hilarious, fast-paced novel follows an all-female NASCAR team, sponsored by Vagenya, a new product that claims to be "like Viagra, but for women," and their male driver, Badger Jenkins, a sexy bad boy who takes them all for a wild ride.

"She''s Agatha Christie with an attitude; outrageous and engrossing at the same time." Steven Womack, NASHVILLE BANNER Book four in Sharyn McCrumb''s Elizabeth MacPherson murder mystery series. A motley crew of American and British professionals and amateurs gathers for an archaeological dig into prehistoric burial rites on a small Scottish island. Things already aren''t going so well, when one of the strongest in the crew dies suddenly. Afraid for her life, fellow digger and forensic anthropologist Elizabeth MacPherson probes the rocky topsoil for a reason behind the evil aura of death that seems to hover over them. Is the excavation cursed by the ancient dead...or is there a more modern explanation behind the group''s strangely rising mortality rate...?

From the New York Times bestselling author of Prayers the Devil Answers and The Ballad of Tom Dooley, a “fascinating historical fiction novel you won’t be able to put down” (Bustle) based on one of the strangest murder trials in American history—the case of the Greenbrier Ghost. Lakin, West Virginia, 1930: Following a suicide attempt and consigned to a segregated insane asylum, attorney James P.D. Gardner finds himself under the care of Dr. James Boozer. Testing a new talking cure for insanity, Boozer encourages his elderly patient to share his experiences as the first black attorney to practice law in 19th-century West Virginia. His memorable case: defending a white man on trial for the murder of his young bride—a case that the prosecution based on the testimony of a ghost. Greenbrier, West Virginia, 1897: Beautiful, willful Zona Heaster has always lived in the mountains. Despite her mother’s misgivings, Zona marries the handsome Erasmus Trout Shue, Greenbrier’s newest resident and blacksmith. Her mother learns of her daughter’s death weeks later. A month after the funeral, Zona’s mother makes a chilling claim to the county prosecutor: her daughter was murdered, and she was told this by none other than Zona’s ghost... With her unique and “real knack for crafting full-bodied characters and using folklore to construct compelling plots” (Booklist), Sharyn McCrumb effortlessly demonstrates her place among the finest Southern writers at work today.

"In an earlier life, McCrumb must have been a balladeer, singing of restless spirits, star-crossed lovers, and the consoling beauty of nature. . . . The overall effect is spellbinding." --The Washington Post Bestselling author Sharyn McCrumb is "a born storyteller" (Mary Higgins Clark) who astonishes readers and reviewers with the power and scope of her talent, prompting the San Diego Union-Tribune to declare: "There is no one quite like her among present-day writers. No one better, either." Foggy Mountain Breakdown, the first-ever collection of Sharyn McCrumb''s short fiction, is a literary quilting of old and new, humorous and heartfelt, offering award-winning works--and two stories never before published, contrasting mountain childhoods past and present. Chilling tales of suspense alternate with evocative character portraits and compelling narratives that embrace the southern Appalachian locales and themes of McCrumb''s acclaimed Ballad Novels. Within this cornucopia of two dozen stories, Old Rattler, a mountain healer, skirmishes with a serial killer . . . Princess Di investigates long-kept secrets within the House of Windsor . . . A reincarnated murder victim seeks delicious revenge . . . And while honeymooning in the bridegroom''s ancestral hilltop homeplace, two newlyweds harbor second thoughts. The author''s perfect-pitch ear for dialogue and ability to illuminate the dark side of human nature merge with her brilliant artistry to make Foggy Mountain Breakdown a virtuoso collection for devotees of Sharyn McCrumb--and for the legion of new readers who will find themselves caught under her spell.

The Ballad of Tom Dooley is a literary triumph—what began as a fictional re-telling of the historical account of one of the most famous mountain ballads of all time became an astonishing revelation of the real culprit responsible for the murder of Laura Foster Hang down your head, Tom Dooley...The folk song, made famous by the Kingston Trio, recounts a tragedy in the North Carolina mountains after the Civil War. Laura Foster, a simple country girl, was murdered and her lover Tom Dula was hanged for the crime. The sensational elements in the case attracted national attention: a man and his beautiful, married lover accused of murdering the other-woman; the former governor of North Carolina spearheading the defense; and a noble gesture from the prisoner on the eve of his execution, saving the woman he really loved. With the help of historians, lawyers, and researchers, Sharyn McCrumb visited the actual sites, studied the legal evidence, and uncovered a missing piece of the story that will shock those who think they already know what happened—and may also bring belated justice to an innocent man. What seemed at first to be a sordid tale of adultery and betrayal was transformed by the new discoveries into an Appalachian Wuthering Heights. Tom Dula and Ann Melton had a profound romance spoiled by the machinations of their servant, Pauline Foster. Bringing to life the star-crossed lovers of this mountain tragedy, Sharyn McCrumb gifts understanding and compassion to her compelling tales of Appalachia, and solidifies her status as one of today''s great Southern writers.

Disguising herself as a boy to join the Union army alongside her husband, Malinda Blalock raids the farms of Confederate sympathizers and promotes the efforts of governor Zebulon Vance, who would protect Appalachian interests.