Storyteller, historian, novelist, spinner of tales? How does one describe Sharyn McCrumb, the balladeer of the South who weaves the threads of fact into the warp and woof of legend to breathe life into tales handed down around firesides and dinner tables from generation to generation?

In THE UNQUIET GRAVE, McCrumb brings us the legend of the Greenbrier Ghost,told for over a century in the hills of West Virginia. This is the tale of how blacksmith Trout Shue was tried and convicted in 1897 of murdering his new bride, Zona, based on evidence given at his trial by Zona’s mother. She declared that her daughter’s ghost had appeared four times to tell her that she had been strangled. Her mother, who had never visited her home in a distant county, was provided details that only the victim could have known. Sufficient doubt was cast that the court ordered Zona’s body to be disinterred and autopsied, and the facts disclosed by the ghost were sufficient to convict her husband.

"McCrumb is known as an intensive researcher, digging into court records, historical journals and books on regional folktales.... THE UNQUIET GRAVE is another treasured mystery solved, this time with a wicked twist at the end."

McCrumb begins the tale in 1930, more than a half century later, where we meet attorney James P. D. Gardner, who is housed for life in the Lakin State Hospital for the Colored Insane. His diagnosis: Insanity due to attempted suicide, a crime under West Virginia law that ironically comes with a life sentence only if you fail to succeed in dying. The story unfolds as Gardner’s psychiatrist, also a black man (no whites are allowed in the segregated hospital), interviews Gardner to determine if he is no longer a danger to himself or others so that he may gain his freedom. During their visits, Gardner discloses that he was Shue’s defense attorney in this famous case.

McCrumb goes back and forth between 1930 and 1897, when proper young ladies were expected to prepare for marriage and motherhood. Zona Heaster was an uncommonly pretty young thing, too pretty for her own good, according to those who knew her. While still in her teens, she became pregnant, but the scandal was swept under the rug and the child whisked off for adoption. Zona remained at home with her family until Trout Shue, a dashing itinerant blacksmith 10 years her senior, swept her off her feet. Despite rumors of two previous marriages, Zona turned a deaf ear to the gossip, and the two planned a hasty wedding. Her father, worried that her reputation would make her unmarriageable, gladly saw her off to the next county, too distant for family visits in the horse-and-buggy days of dirt roads. Two months went by with only a brief note from Zona that she was feeling poorly. Then a horseman arrived with a message that she had been found dead due to an accidental fall down the stairs at home. It was wintertime, the weather was inclement and the coroner ruled it an accident, so a hasty funeral and burial were held the next day.

Zona’s mother learns a few weeks later that Shue’s second wife had died under similar circumstances and instantly suspects foul play. She tells the sheriff that she has been receiving visits from Zona’s ghost who tells her she was murdered. The sheriff doubts her story, but with no proof to the contrary and based on Shue’s reputation, the court finds reasonable cause to disinter the body. The mother had provided clues as to where and what evidence could be found on the property where the couple had lived, despite never having visited. The coroner finds sufficient evidence of strangulation for an arrest and trial. The mother’s testimony of the ghostly visits and the coroner’s report are enough for the jury to find Shue guilty and sent to jail for life.

McCrumb’s thorough research uncovered two intriguing clues to the ghost story. She found evidence of the trial, records regarding James P. D. Gardner. Gardner had been reading law under the tutelage of a prominent white lawyer whose disreputable reputation had gained him ample press coverage for her research. She also located records of the insane asylum and corroborated the name of the black psychiatrist who treated Gardner.

McCrumb is known as an intensive researcher, digging into court records, historical journals and books on regional folktales. She haunts libraries and confers with experts until she pins down irrefutable facts. Only then does she wave her literary wand with what some call the “Sight” to breathe life to the voices, the times, the very essence of the culture and people. THE UNQUIET GRAVE is another treasured mystery solved, this time with a wicked twist at the end.