The Unquiet Grave

May 1, 2017

In McCrumb's (Prayers the Devil Answers) latest novel, which draws on a historical court case that involved the legendary Greenbrier Ghost, dual narrators tell an unsettling story set in 19th-century West Virginia. In 1930, James Gardner, committed to the Lakin State Hospital for the Colored Insane, recounts his role as second chair and defense attorney in the 1897 trial of Edward "Trout" Shue for the murder of his wife. In the second narrative, Mary Jane Heaster relates the story of her daughter, Zona, a beautiful young woman who fell hard for Trout, and paid the ultimate price, "falling" to her death. Determined to find justice for her daughter, Mary Jane pushes the county prosecutor, telling him that Zona's ghost had recalled how she'd been killed by Trout. Can a man be convicted of murder based on the testimony of a ghost? VERDICT In this compelling story, McCrumb continues to relate the dynamic tales of Appalachia and its people. Fans of Julia Keller's "Bell Elkins" mysteries may want to try this. [See Prepub Alert, 3/27/17.]--LH

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 15, 2017
McCrumb's new novel is based on a relatively obscure ghost story. In West Virginia in the late 1890s, Zona Heaster Shue, a newlywed, died. Her death was attributed to natural causes, butand here's where the story takes a right-angle turn into the paranormalthe dead woman's mother reported to the prosecutor that her daughter's ghost had told her she was murdered by her husband. After Zona's body was exhumed and examined, her husband was put on trial and found guilty, based, it seems, mostly on the testimony of a ghost. McCrumb's fictional version of the story of the Greenbrier Ghost incorporates some of the real people and events, but this is not a work of nonfiction, and readers should not expect the book to solve the most notable mystery surrounding the story: Did Zona's mother honestly believe her daughter's ghost had fingered her killer, or did she simply concoct a story to put the man behind bars? McCrumb, author of a string of novels about the history and legends of North Carolina, has a real knack for crafting full-bodied characters and using folklore to construct compelling plots.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)