Sharon McCrumb
The Hangman’s Beautiful Daughter
Hodder & Stoughton (NEL) (0 340 64688 8) £5.99
Sharon McCrumb has twice won the
Best Appalachian Novel Award as well as other prizes for her crime fiction. This book,
first published in 1992 by Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, is memorable in the
portrayal of Appalachia and its people as the background to the plot. The story covers the
events in the lives of the residents of Dark Hollow, Tennessee, from November until the
following April. McCrumb's description of the mountainous landscape through the changing
seasons is wonderful. Nora Bonesteel lives on the top of Ashe Mountain in a house in a
meadow where the rooms that face down the mountain are "rooms of light and air that
seemed to be built on clouds". Across the valley she can see the craggy face of the
outcrop of rock known as "The Hangman". She can also "see" into the
future and often knows things she would rather not know. For Nora, like the other mountain
people, is descended from the ancient Celts who settled in this beautiful region and she
possesses ‘The Sight’. The story begins when Laura Bruce, the minister’s wife, is called upon by Sheriff Spencer Atwood to help at the scene of an horrendous murder. Four members of the Underhill family, newcomers to Dark Hollow, are dead. The search for an explanation to what seems a clear cut case of three murders and a suicide is led by Sheriff Spencer Arrowood. But there is horror and tragedy waiting for others in the community too and Nora will foresee, though not tell of these events. And winding through the idyllic countryside is the River Dove, poisoned by the paper mill upstream. Before the truth about the murders emerges the reader will have, whilst enjoying a well crafted story, gained insight into the lives today of the people who live in this part of the USA. Their problems will be gently highlighted and remembered with the story itself after the book has been put down. (P.E.D.)
See Review of The Rosewood Casket
