The Devil Amongst the Lawyers: a Ballad Novel

Publisher Marketing: In 1935, when Erma Morton, a beautiful young woman with a teaching degree, is charged with the murder of her father in a remote Virginia mountain community, the case becomes a cause celebre for the national press. Eager for a case to replace the Lindbergh trial in the public s imagination, the journalists descend on the mountain county intent on infusing their stories with quaint local color: horse-drawn buggies, rundown shacks, children in threadbare clothes. They need tales of rural poverty to give their Depression-era readers people whom they can feel superior to. The untruth of these cultural stereotypes did not deter the big-city reporters, but a local journalist, Carl Jennings, fresh out of college and covering his first major story, reports what he sees: an ordinary town and a defendant who is probably guilty. This journey to a distant time and place summons up ghosts from the reporters pasts: Henry Jernigan s sojourn in Japan that ended in tragedy, Shade Baker s hardscrabble childhood on the Iowa prairie, and Rose Hanelon s brittle sophistication, a shield for her hopeless love affair. While they spin their manufactured tales of squalor, Carl tries to discover the truth in the Morton trial with the help of his young cousin Nora, who has the Sight. But who will believe a local cub reporter whose stories contradict the nation s star journalists? For the listener, the novel resonates with the present: an economic depression, a deadly flu epidemic, a world contending with the rise of political fanatics, and a media culture determined to turn news stories into soap operas for the diversion of the masses." Review Citations: Audio File 10/01/2010 pg. 50 (EAN 9781441867704, Compact Disc) Library Journal Prepub Alert 02/15/2010 pg. 75 (EAN 9780312558161, Hardcover) Booklist 04/01/2010 pg. 4 (EAN 9780312558161, Hardcover) Kirkus Reviews 04/15/2010 (EAN 9780312558161, Hardcover) Publishers Weekly 04/26/2010 pg. 88 (EAN 9780312558161, Hardcover) New York Times Book Review 07/04/2010 pg. 22 (EAN 9780312558161, Hardcover) Contributor Bio:  McCrumb, Sharyn Sharyn McCrumb is the "New York Times" best-selling author of "The Rosewood Casket, The Ballad of Tom Dooley", and many other acclaimed novels. She lives and writes in the Virginia Blue Ridge, less than 100 miles from where her family settled in 1790 in the Smoky Mountains that divide North Carolina and Tennessee. Contributor Bio:  Daniels, Luke Luke Daniels has narrated over 250 audiobooks, has been the grateful recipient of thirteen AudioFile Earphones Awards, and has earned three Audie nominations. His background is in classical theater and film. Luke has performed at repertory theaters around the country, but now he resides in the Midwest with his pack.