Publishers Weekly declares that the "leaves of autumn are in full splendor, and so is Maron's talent in her 10th Deborah Knott adventure." Judge Knott is finally ready to marry her long-time friend Deputy Sheriff Dwight Bryant and settle down-or is she? She jumps at a chance to fill in for a judge in the high country of North Carolina. But ugly murder haunts the beauty of the Smoky Mountains.

Bootlegger Rory Docherty has returned home to the fabled mountain of his childhood - a misty wilderness that holds its secrets close and keeps the outside world at gunpoint. Slowed by a wooden leg and haunted by memories of the Korean War, Rory runs bootleg whiskey for a powerful mountain clan in a retro-fitted '40 Ford coupe. Between deliveries to roadhouses, brothels, and private clients, he lives with his formidable grandmother, evades federal...

Fever Devilin, a folklorist by inclination and training, was born and raised amongst the hill-country folk of the Georgia Appalachians and it was there that he returned once he decided to leave academia. And he's the perfect person to turn to when the owner of a mysterious medallion, one with some connection to the area, wants to uncover the provenance of the piece. On the surface, it sounds simple enough but in Fever's life, nothing is ever simple....

The train taking nineteen-year-old teacher Christy Huddleston from her home in Asheville, North Carolina, might as well be transporting her to another world. The Smoky Mountain community of Cutter Gap feels suspended in time, trapped by poverty, superstitions, and century-old traditions. But as Christy struggles to find acceptance in her new home, some see her - and her one-room school - as a threat to their way of life. Her faith is challenged and...

"The Powell brothers, Muir and Moody, are as different as Cain and Abel. Muir is an innocent, a shy young man with big dreams and not the slightest idea of what to do about them. Moody, the older and wilder brother -- embittered by the death of his father, by years of fighting his mother, and by his jealousy of Muir's privileged place in the family -- takes to moonshine and gambling and turns his anger on his brother. Muir escapes, hoping to find...