Combat veteran John Puller, now working as an investigator for the Army's Criminal Investigative Division, tries to solve the murder of an Army man and his Pentagon contractor wife in their isolated rural home

Breece D'J Pancake cut short a promising career when he took his own life at the age twenty-six. Published posthumously, this is a collection of stories that depict the world of Pancake's native rural West Virginia.

Isabeau Maran, a police chief in a West Virginia mountain town, crosses paths with Morgan Yancy, the leader of a paramilitary group who's been ambushed and almost killed. For Morgan Yancy, an operative and team leader in a paramilitary group, nothing comes before his job. But when he's ambushed and almost killed, his supervisor is determined to find out who's after the members of his elite squad-- and why. For his safety, Morgan is sent to a remote...

Zoe is about to discover her true courageous spirit. She must find the key of valor -- on the last of three dangerous quests that will force her to confront her darkest fears ... or suffer immeasurable loss

"An hour from the closest West Virginia mining town, fifteen-year-old Wren Bird lives in a cloistered mountain cabin with her parents. They have no car, no mailbox, and no visitors--except for her mother's lifelong best friend. Every Sunday, Wren's father delivers winding sermons in an abandoned gas station, where he takes up serpents and praises the Lord for his blighted white eye, proof of his divinity and key to the hold he has over the community,...

Set during the 1950s in West Virginia and Korea, this is the story of two children--Lark, on the verge of adulthood, and her brother, Termite, a child unable to walk and talk but filled with radiance--who grow up with their mother and aunt while their soldier-father fights for his life during the chaotic early months of the Korean War

"In the early evening of June 25, 1980 in Pocahontas County, West Virginia, two middle-class outsiders named Vicki Durian, 26, and Nancy Santomero, 19, were murdered in an isolated clearing. They were hitchhiking to a festival known as the Rainbow Gathering but never arrived; they traveled with a third woman however, who lived. For thirteen years, no one was prosecuted for the "Rainbow Murders," though deep suspicion was cast on a succession of local...

Julia Castillo is stranded on a dusty road, just three miles outside of the small West Virginia town of Sanctuary, where she hopes to reconnect with the first gallery owner who believed in her equestrian paintings. Luckily, lawyer Paul Taggart can't resist a damsel in distress, so he picks her up, delivers her well-received art, and then proceeds to sweep Julia off her feet. Paul is determined not to get attached to Julia because his family responsibilities...

Phone calls before dawn from the sheriff are rarely good news. When Bell Elkins picks up the phone she already knows she won't like what she's about to hear, but she's still not prepared for this: Lucinda Trimble's body has been found at the bottom of Bitter River-- and she was dead before her body ever hit the water. Searching for the truth, both behind Lucinda's murder and behind her own complicated relationships, will lead Bell down a path that...

"An urgent and heartbreaking investigation into the corporate greed and governmental corruption that pumped millions of pain pills into small Appalachian towns"--Jacket.