McCrumb, Sharyn

She Walks These Hills

The Songcatcher

Capturing the enduring beauty of the Appalachian mountains where she sets her novels, Sharyn McCrumb returns with a beautifully written, historically accurate tale of a song's passage through history-from the 1700s to the present, from the shores of Scotland to western North Carolina...where a folksinger longs to rediscover its haunting tune.

"Quite charming." (Los Angeles Times)

"Once again McCrumb has earned her place among the ranks of America's top storytellers. (Tampa Tribune)

"Intriguing...suspenseful." (Orlando Sentinel)

"McCrumb writes with quiet fire and maybe a little mountain magic." (New York Times Book Review)

St. Dale

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.

The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter

Sick of Shadows

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

The Rosewood Casket

It would have been almost impossible for McCrumb to top her last book, She Walks These Hills, one of the best mysteries of the last decade. But this story of a Southern family haunted by deeds done and undone comes very close: It's full of beautifully-observed details of everyday life which anchor the mystical moments and keep us rooted in reality. This one -- and other McCrumb classics like The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter -- are perfect gifts for readers who haven't yet found a way into the mystery genre.

If Ever I Return, Pretty Peggy-O

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....

The Ballad of Frankie Silver

Sharyn McCrumb is one of the major wonders of the mystery world. Her books about forensic anthropologist Elizabeth MacPherson (including Highland Laddie Gone) are strong, meaty contemporary stories; her comic novels (Bimbos of the Death Sun, Zombies of the Gene Pool) are delightful satires. And then there's the jewel in her crown, the series known as the Ballad novels (including The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter and The Rosewood Casket) where the third-generation Appalachian resident McCrumb sews together what she calls "colored scraps of legends, ballads and fragments of rural life and local tragedy" into books that are like Appalachian quilts. The Ballad of Frankie Silver is the fifth in the Ballad series, and it might well be the best. The blend between the old story and the new is perfect, as Sheriff Spencer Arrowood digs into the 1832 case of the first woman ever hanged for murder in North Carolina--18-year-old Frankie Silver, charged with dismembering her husband--while some disturbing new evidence is surfacing about another, much more recent capital crime. If you have friends who don't read mysteries but liked Cold Mountain, pointing them toward McCrumb might be the start of something big. --Dick Adler

From New York Times bestselling author Sharyn McCrumb comes the fifth novel set in the Appalachian wilderness blending legends and folklore with high suspense.

A career lawman will bear witness to the final judgement, as a man he put away twenty years ago is about to be excecuted for the brutal slaying of two hikers. However, his conscience is no longer clear to the point of absolute certainty about the man's guilt. Also of intense interest to the lawman is the parallel between the current events and a legendary murder and execution over 100 years old--the story of a great injustice, and a woman condemned to die for a crime she didn't commit. Suddenly, the sheriff finds himself in a race against and across time to see that history doesn't repeat itself!

Praise for The Ballad Of Frankie Silver:

"...a dense and lovely but very dark design that illustrates the social hypocrisy of the legal system as much as the harshness of mountain justice--then and now."-- The New York Times Book Review

"Reading a novel by Sharyn McCrumb is like listening to the movements of a symphony."--BookPage

"This novel will pass the test of time and be considered a classic in the years to come."--Harriet Klausner

"Sharyn McCrumb has dug more riches out of the Appalachians than some miners."-- Sunday World-Herald

"From New York Times bestselling author Sharyn McCrumb comes the fifth novel set in the Appalachian wilderness blending legends and folklore with high suspense. A career lawman will bear witness to the final judgement, as a man he put away twenty years ago is about to be executed for the brutal slaying of two hikers. However, his conscience is no longer clear to the point of absolute certainty about the man?s guilt. Also of intense interest to the lawman is the parallel between the current events and a legendary murder and execution over 100 years old-- the story of a great injustice, and a woman condemned to die for a crime she didn?t commit. Suddenly, the sheriff finds himself in a race against and across time to see that history doesn?t repeat itself! "

Foggy Mountain Breakdown

"I come from a race of stortytellers," writes Sharyn McCrumb in her introduction to the first complete collection of her wonderfully rich and mordant short stories. "My father's family--the Arrowoods and the McCourys--settled in the Smoky Mountains of western North Carolina when the wilderness was still Indian country." Like McCrumb's fine novels (She Walks These Hills and a dozen others), these 24 stories link the mysteries of the past with life in present-day Appalachia, using chains of words stronger than any steel.

"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.

Highland Laddie Gone

"I had a great time at Sharyn McCrumb's inimitable version of the Highland games."
Charlotte MacLeod
In her third outing as amateur sleuth, Elizabeth MacPherson has the chance to revel in the rites of the old country at the annual Glencoe Mountain Games. But the innocent ethnic fair is cursed when the loathed Colin Campbell is found murdered. When a second reveler is found dead, Elizabeth lays to hunt and untangles all....