Sharyn McCrumb

Sheriff Spencer Arrowood investigates the threatening messages being sent to Peggy Muryan, a famous folksinger of the 1960s, who has returned to her hometown of Hamelin, Tennessee, in search of peace and quiet

If Ever I Return, Pretty Peggy-O

From New York Times bestselling author Sharyn McCrumb comes a finely wrought novel set in nineteenth-century West Virginia, based on the true story of 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. Fresh out of medical school, Dr. Boozer is eager to try the new talking cure for insanity, and encourages his elderly patient to reminisce about his experiences as the first black attorney to practice law in nineteenth-century West Virginia. Gardner's most memorable case was the one in which he helped to defend 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 of West Virginia. Despite her mother’s misgivings, Zona marries Erasmus Trout Shue, the handsome blacksmith who has recently come to Greenbrier County. After weeks of silence from the newlyweds, riders come to the Heasters’ place to tell them that Zona has died from a fall, attributed to a recent illness. Mary Jane is determined to get justice for her daughter. A month after the funeral, she informs the county prosecutor that Zona’s ghost appeared to her, saying that she had been murdered. An autopsy, ordered by the reluctant prosecutor, confirms her claim. The Greenbrier Ghost is renowned in American folklore, but Sharyn McCrumb is the first author to look beneath the legend to unearth the facts. Using a century of genealogical material and other historical documents, McCrumb reveals new information about the story and brings to life the personalities in the trial: the prosecutor, a former Confederate cavalryman; the defense attorney, a pro-Union bridgeburner, who nevertheless had owned slaves; and the mother of the murdered woman, who doggedly sticks to her ghost story—all seen through the eyes of a young black lawyer on the cusp of a new century, with his own tragedies yet to come. With its unique blend of masterful research and mesmerizing folklore, illuminating the story’s fascinating and complex characters, The Unquiet Grave confirms Sharyn McCrumb’s place among the finest Southern writers at work today.

A Novel

The Unquiet Grave

Bimbos of the Death Sun

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

Sick of Shadows

A story inspired by a true crime made famous by the Kingston Trio's folk song recording reimagines the events surrounding the murder of North Carolina mountain girl Laura Foster and the hanging of her lover, Tom Dula, in a meticulously researched account that reveals additional information that may prove Dula's innocence. 75,000 first printing.

A Ballad Novel

The Ballad of Tom Dooley

The hangman's beautiful daughter

Elizabeth MacPherson must solve a mystery that links the present to the past when she takes a tour of the famous crime scenes of the British Isles, and the tour itself becomes the scene of a crime.

Missing Susan

Applying her psychic talents to two mysterious cases, policewoman Martha Ayers attempts to settle local superstitions about a two-hundred-year-old ghost while tracking down an escaped prisoner. Reissue.

She Walks These Hills

Drawn into the American Revolution by famous British officer Patrick Ferguson's threat against his settlement, John Sevier organizes the Carolina Overmountain Men militia and leads them through a pivotal victory against Tory forces. By the best-selling author of The Ballad of Tom Dooley.

King's Mountain

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 Ballad of Frankie Silver

Zombies of the Gene Pool

Forensic anthropologist Elizabeth MacPherson and her brother are on the trail of the "PMS Outlaws"--an escaped convict and her fugitive attorney who attack men in pickup joints.

The PMS Outlaws

Windsor Knot

Years after eight friends bury a time capsule filled with original science fiction stories, some of the friends have become famous and dig up the capsule amid much publicity, until a believed-dead member of the group arrives. Reissue.

Elizabeth MacPherson returns from England to find her family in a state of disarray and tries to set things straight as her brother faces a messy lawsuit and her parents threaten to divorce after twenty-five years of marriage.

MacPherson's Lament

When someone buys the old Honeycutt house, Nora Bonesteel is glad to see some life brought back to the old mansion, even if it is by summer people. But when the new owners decide to stay in their summer home through Christmas, they find more than old memories in the walls.

Nora Bonesteel's Christmas past

Suddenly thrust into the role of primary caretaker for her family following the tragic death of her husband, Ellie Robbins is appointed to serve out his term as sheriff of their rural Tennessee mountain town. The year is 1936, and her role is largely symbolic, except for the one task that only a sheriff can do: execute a convicted prisoner. Ellie has long proven she can handle herself. But becoming sheriff is altogether different, and the demands of the role are even more challenging when she is forced to combat society's expectations for a woman. Soon enough, dark secrets come to light, and Ellie must grapple with small town superstitions and the tenuaous ties she shared with a condemned killer as she carves out a place for herself in an uncertain future. --

Prayers the Devil Answers

As an elderly man lies dying on his Appalachian farm, a mountain wise woman brings to light a small box to be buried with him--one that contains a dark secret from his mysterious past!

The Rosewood Casket

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, kidnapped and sent to the American colonies, where he eventually became a lawyer and fought in the American Revolution. Reprint.

The Songcatcher

A collection of essays on the Mountain South by New York Times best-selling author Sharyn McCrumb. Contents include 'Keepers of the Legends, ' 'A Novelist Looks at the Land, ' 'The Celts and the Appalachians, ' Magic Realism in Appalachia, ' 'Nora Bonesteel and the Sight, ' and 'Reflections on Historical Fiction.'

Sharyn McCrumb

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