From Kirkus Reviews\nHere, the frisky McCrumb (If I Ever Return, Pretty Peggy-O, The Windsor Knot--both 1990), with deadpan humor and bull's-eye accuracy, skewers the science fiction genre, its eccentric authors, and outlandish fans and their nitpicking fanzines. Jay Omega and Marion Farley (the paperback Bimbos of the Death Sun) agree to accompany fellow professor Erik Giles (a.k.a. sci-fi writer C.A. Stormcock) to a reunion of the ``Lanthanides,'' a group of would-be writers who lived together in Wall Hollow, Tennessee, back in the Fifties. Now, one is dead, one is a Hollywood nabob, one is publishing a fanzine, and a couple are still writing and have become sci-fi stars. At Wall Hollow, they plan to dig up a time capsule they buried with some of their early work and cash in on their later fame by auctioning off publication rights to the highest bidder. Then someone starts killing them off, beginning with the reunion crasher--the supposedly dead author Pat Malone. Omega, with the help of computer log-ons, finally figures out not only whodunit but why...or does he? Author McCrumb has one more twist up her sleeve. Funny bits throughout, but the constant sendup of beloved sci- fi shticks begins to seem mean-spirited, and Omega and Marion are little more than walk-ons. Still: an engaging read. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.\nEn route to a sci-fi convention and reunion of the Lanthanides, Dr. James Owen Mega--engineering professor and science fiction author known as "Jay Omega"--and literature professor Dr. Marion Farley stumble into a web of dark secrets and murder\nFrom Publishers Weekly\nContinuing the delightful adventures begun in Bimbos of the Death Sun , engineering professor and famed science fiction author Jay Omega and his significant other, Marion Farley, a professor of SF, investigate the murder of another science fiction writer. 
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.\nFrom the Inside Flap\nIn the 1950s, a group of young science fiction writers, dreaming of literary immortality and calling themselves the Lanthanides, buried a time capsule with their stories and relics from the time. Now, in the 1990s, when several of them have become famous, the surviving Lanthanides are getting together at a special convention to dig up the capsule and open it. But the convention is startled by the appearance of a writer who was supposed to have died thirty years ago. Then murder materializes to throw the agenda further into chaos. Now, Jay Omega, author of Bimbos of the Death Sun, and his significant other, Dr. Marion Farley, must separate science fact from fiction -- and unearth a killer with a story of his own to tell.

Zombies of the Gene Pool

Literature & Fiction

MCCRUMB, SHARYN

Contemporary

Ballantine

Bimbos of the Death Sun (TSR Fantasy)

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Penguin Books, Ltd.

When Nora, the late Randall Stargill's old sweetheart, brings a small box of bones to be buried with him, the mystery of their origins threatens Nora's future.

The Rosewood Casket

Literary

Penguin Audio

"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 one of Sharyn McCrumb's most cherished novels. 
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 Rosewood Casket: A Ballad Novel (Ballad Novels, 4)

United States

St. Martin's: Griffin

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: A Ballad Novel (Ballad Novels, 5)

In 1935, when Erma Morton, a beautiful young woman with a teaching degree, is charged with the murder of her father in a remote Virginia mountain community, the case becomes a cause célèbrefor the national press.
 Eager for a case to replace the Lindbergh trial in the public’s imagination, the journalists descend on the mountain county intent on infusing their stories with quaint local color: horse-drawn buggies, rundown shacks, children in threadbare clothes. They need tales of rural poverty to give their Depression-era readers people whom they can feel superior to. The untruth of these cultural stereotypes did not deter the big-city reporters, but a local journalist, Carl Jennings, fresh out of college and covering his first major story, reports what he sees: an ordinary town and a defendant who is probably guilty. 
This journey to a distant time and place summons up ghosts from the reporters’ pasts: Henry Jernigan’s sojourn in Japan that ended in tragedy, Shade Baker’s hardscrabble childhood on the Iowa prairie, and Rose Hanelon’s brittle sophistication, a shield for her hopeless love affair. While they spin their manufactured tales of squalor, Carl tries to discover the truth in the Morton trial with the help of his young cousin Nora, who has the Sight. But who will believe a local cub reporter whose stories contradict the nation’s star journalists? For the reader, the novel resonates with the present: an economic depression, a deadly flu epidemic, a world contending with the rise of political fanatics, and a media culture determined to turn news stories into soap operas for the diversion of the masses.
A stunning return to the lands, ballads, and characters upon which she made her name, The Devil Amongst the Lawyers is a testament to Sharyn McCrumb’s lyrical and evocative writing.

The Devil Amongst the Lawyers: A Ballad Novel (Ballad Novels)

Thomas Dunne Books

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.

The Ballad of Tom Dooley: A Ballad Novel (Ballad Novels)

"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.
A literary tour de force, The Devil Amongst the Lawyers 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 Devil Amongst the Lawyers: A Ballad Novel (Ballad Novels, 8)

Hodder&Stoughton

Edgar Award-winning author Sharyn McCrumb offers a haunting tale of madness and murder set against a tapestry of Applachian folklore. The special insight of a newcomer to the wilderness community and the dark visions of its long-time Sunday school teacher intersect when death and fear come to the mountain. Sequel to If I Ever Return, Pretty Peggy-O.

The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter (New English Library)

New English Library Ltd.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by MCCRUMB, SHARYN. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by MCCRUMB, SHARYN

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by MCCRUMB, SHARYN. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Zombies of the Gene Pool

Bimbos of the Death Sun (TSR Fantasy)

The Rosewood Casket

The Rosewood Casket: A Ballad Novel (Ballad Novels, 4)

The Ballad of Frankie Silver: A Ballad Novel (Ballad Novels, 5)

The Devil Amongst the Lawyers: A Ballad Novel (Ballad Novels)

The Ballad of Tom Dooley: A Ballad Novel (Ballad Novels)

The Devil Amongst the Lawyers: A Ballad Novel (Ballad Novels, 8)

The Rosewood Casket

The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter (New English Library)