"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.  


From the Hardcover edition.

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

"From the Paperback edition."

"Eloquent, lyrical, and richly textured . . . There is no one quite like McCrumb] among present-day writers. No one better either." --"San Diego Union-Tribune
"

With a career spanning decades, and superlatives from reviewers nationwide--whose bestselling novels have been named Notable Books by the "New York Times" and the "LA Times"--this is a unique opportunity to publish one of Sharyn McCrumb's most cherished novels. Now in trade paperback for the first time, fresh on the heels of McCrumb's return to the bestseller list
The stage is set for family drama when Randall Stargill lies dying on his southern Appalachian farm, and his four sons come home to build him a coffin made from the special cache of rosewood he has saved for this purpose. Meanwhile, mountain wisewoman, Nora Bonesteel, prepares another box--to be buried with him. Among them, a real estate developer is hovering over the family's farm bringing secrets and tensions to the surface.
In a style both lyrical and beautifully detailed, with a narrative that flows from Native American lore and the burnished tales of Daniel Boone--up to the sharpest, and keenly realized landscapes of Appalachia today, "The Rosewood Casket" is a novel as hauntingly beautiful as the mountains that gave it charge--and a stunning addition to our collection of McCrumb Ballad novels.

"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.

"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 on 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 novel 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 diversion of the masses.

"The Devil Amongst the Lawyers" is a literary tour de force, 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.

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. . . .