Mary Crow returns to her home town for a promised job that does not materialize. With shrinking prospects and pocketbooks, she opens a tiny one-woman law practice. Her first client is a successful developer, who hires Mary for brain-numbing real estate work. Her second client, however, is Ridge Standingdeer, a young Cherokee boy accused of murdering the beautiful and popular Bethany Daws. Though Mary's promised her great love Jonathan Walkingstick no more murders, Mary can't refuse the boy. Ridge is a mystical Ani Zaguhi Cherokee, from one of the oldest, most revered families of the tribe.
As Ridge awaits trial, Mary tries to build a defense. Unknown to her, other, less experienced investigators are working, too. Trying desperately to save her shattered family, Bethany's twelve-year-old sister Kayla enlists her new friend Avis in an effort to exonerate Ridge and find the true killer. Kayla's experience in detective work comes solely from television shows, while Avis has read every mystery writer from Agatha Christie to P.D.James. Still, the pair persevere, unknowingly blundering into unimaginable dangers.
Though the two girls do uncover evidence, they don't find enough to convince anyone in law enforcement. They decide to set a trap for the killer, using Avis as bait. But the killer discovers the trap and Avis realizes that she will soon be the next to die. Kayla frantically reaches out to the one person who might help them-Mary Crow. As Mary races to stop the killer from striking again, everything she believes about the Ani Zaguhi Cherokees is upended. Their power is real, their mysticism is real as they lash out to save one of their own.
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Produkt-Hinweis
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ISBN-13
978-1-0879-4039-7 (9781087940397)
Schweitzer Klassifikation
I grew up in Nashville, Tennessee, having the good fortune to be raised in a multi-generational family of Southern story-tellers and book readers. In the second grade, I wrote a prize-winning essay about my Chihuahua, Mathilda, and my writing career was launched. My parents gave me a typewriter for Christmas, and I began to churn out one-page mysteries, neighborhood newsletters, dreadful songs (remember, this was Nashville) and even worse poetry. Away from my feverish typing, I joined the Girl Scouts, loved the outdoors and camping, and loved particularly the chills that went down my spine when ghost stories were told around the campfire. I've always loved dogs and horses-Quarter horses and Boxers, especially.
Fast forward a couple of decades, and I'm living in Asheville, North Carolina.
Though I've written all my life-ad copy, a couple of short stories, ghost writing for a children's series--I'd never found my voice, so to speak, as a novelist. Then suddenly, in the midst of these spooky old Appalachian forests, I did. My heroine Mary Crow came to me almost like the goddess Athena, popping out of Zeus's head. I knew what she looked like, how she laughed, what made her angry, who she loved and what moved her to tears. Her story would be as intrinsic to these mountains as her Cherokee people have been for so many generations. I wrote my first Mary Crow novel, "In The Forest of Harm" over the course of a year. I sent it out, got an agent who sold it pretty quickly. I remember my editor saying "You might be on to something here." Well, five books into Mary Crow's adventures, I guess she was right.
Though I've come far and written a lot during those years since I captured the second grade essay prize, at heart I'm still that same kid. I write lousy songs and terrible poetry, but I love the smell of the woods, love to hear a hoot owl in the forest at night, love the chill that an eerie ghost story sends down my spine. If you enjoy those things, too, then take a look my at books. We just might have a lot in common.
