Racing fans have never seen anything like it-and they've seen plenty-the first all-women's team in stock-car racing history. Already a national sensation, the spotlight heats up when financial challenges force Team 86 to hire a male "wheel man." And Badger Jenkins is a man all right-a sweet-faced Georgian who oozes aw-shucks charm off the track and unleashes blistering speed in competition. But the real Badger is a hard man to know. Just ask the women whose job it is to keep both car and driver in one piece. From crew chief and team manager Tuggle to engine specialist Rosalind Manning, publicist Melanie Sark and diehard fan Taran Stiles, this asphalt sisterhood will power through a racing season of dizzying highs and terrifying lows to prove that women can do a man's job. And when the unthinkable happens, each will realize that they've been hurtling at breakneck speed toward a moment that will change them forever.

Based on the Dale Earnhardt Memorial Pilgrimage after the NSCAR legend's death, Sharyn McCrumb has crafted a tale of transformation and everyday miracles. Suffused with incisive Southern wit and unforgettable characters, "St. Dale" looks into the heart of America-its secular saints and cereal-box heroes, wild dreams and unrealized ambitions, heartbreaking losses and second chances-and celebrates its unbreakable spirit.

Ostensibly a mystery novel complete with a murder and an array of suspects with plausible motives, Bimbos of the Death Sun won an Edgar Award in 1988 for Best Original Paperback Mystery. While we follow the plot eagerly, curious to know who killed famed novelist Appin Dungannon and why, the fact is that what happens in this novel is in some ways much less important than where it happens. Bimbos of the Death Sun is not a mystery that just so happens to also be science fiction and fantasy; it's a novel about a particular American subculture as well in which Trekkies and Dungeon Masters convene--complete with their hobbit costumes and the like--to buy and sell memorabilia. The novel is in fact a parody of that culture and as such, it has garnered ambivalent reviews from the science fiction and fantasy community that it caricatures. The perspective of the novel is decidedly that of an outsider, a protagonist named James Owen Mega, who--under the pseudonym Jay Omega--has published a science fiction novel named Bimbos Under the Death Sun. Omega, however, is no science fiction fanatic, nor does he frequent conventions. He and his girlfriend, Dr. Marion Farley, are both professors at a local university, and Omega wrote the novel in his spare time as a fictionalized account of his real-life scientific research. The reader then experiences the convention's peculiarities and surprises along with other bewildered and amazed professors. It could be said that the pair represent two different approaches to the pageantry and obsession that swirl around them. Omega, as guest author and conference V.I.P., tries to tread lightly around the customs and peculiarities of the sci-fi aficionados in an effort not to offend but also to avoid becoming too involved. Marion, the professor of comparative literature, casts a more critical eye on the proceedings, giving the touted big-shots and the aspiring authors little in the way of credibility. McCrumb tempers the satire with her choice of protagonists; by informing us that Marion actually teaches a course on science fiction and fantasy at the local university, McCrumb is sure to acknowledge that science fiction is a legitimate literary genre in her eyes. Like any other legitimate literary genre then, it has its noteworthy practitioners (Tolkein, Asimov) as well as its charlatans (Appin, Dungannon). Her target, McCrumb wants us to know, is not the works themselves but rather the obsessive culture that springs up around the works. By making the shy, bookish Jay Omega her sympathetic protagonist, McCrumb is also making it clear that her target is not simply the socially maladroit. The whole satire is directed at those who have made these escapist fantasies a true-to-life obsession. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Award-winning novelist Sharyn McCrumb is best known for her Ballad novels, a series of fictionalized accounts of the history and culture of the Appalachian region of the United States. The Ballad novels include the works The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter; If I Ever Return, Pretty Peggy-O; She Walks These Hills; and most recently The Ballad of Frankie Silver. In 1997, McCrumb won the Outstanding Contribution to Appalachian Literature award. The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, as was If I Ever Return, Pretty Peggy-O. A graduate of the University of North Carolina and Virginia Tech, McCrumb taught journalism before turning her attention to writing fiction as a full time endeavor. McCrumb has won many awards for her mystery novels, including an Edgar for 1988's Bimbos of the Death Sun. In that work she satirized the science fiction and fantasy community as well as in the work's sequel, Zombies of the Mutant Gene Pool. Her novels have been translated into over ten languages.

Elizabeth MacPherson must solve a mystery that links the present to the past when she takes a tour of the famous crime scenes of the British Isles, and the tour itself becomes the scene of the crime.

Agatha Award “(A) SHARP-EDGED, WITTY TALE… Buoyed by intriguing characters, a wry wit, and lush Virginia atmosphere, McCrumb’s mystery spins merrily along on its own momentum, concluding that justice will triumph… but in surprising ways.” – Publishers Weekly “Elizabeth’s eighth outing has it all-a gaggle of tidy mysteries, nonstop laughs, bumper-sticker wisdom about the male animal, and some other, sadder kinds of wisdom, too. Quite a banquet-if you don’t mind all that arsenic.” – Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “Whenever Sharyn McCrumb suits up her amateur detective, Elizabeth MacPherson, it’s pretty certain that a trip is in the offing and that something deadly funny will happen.” – The New York Times Book Review “McCrumb has an exquisite sense of the ridiculous: she creates a New Age version of the Mad Hatter’s tea party that will induce tears of laughter as she neatly skewers academia.” – Richmond Times-Dispatch “A terrific tale… Lots of feminist folklore is coupled with plain old fun as the lawyers and MacPherson do their damnedest to defend their clients.” – Trenton Times “She’s Agatha Christie with an attitude; outrageous and engrossing at the same time.” – Nashville Banner “Contains the author’s trademark rapier wit… Only a writer as accomplished as Sharyn McCrumb can so skillfully marry farce and tragedy with such rewarding results.” – The Gainesville Sun “A delightfully entertaining, uniquely plotted story.” – Booklist “McCrumb is a fine writer with an eye and ear finely tuned to the ever-frazzling relationships between the sexes.” – St. Petersburg Times “McCrumb’s ability to write in a variety of styles-crossing genres, mixing the comic with the serious-makes her one of the most versatile crime authors on the contemporary scene.” – Booklist “Sharyn McCrumb is definitely a star in the New Golden Age of mystery fiction. I look forward to reading her for a long time to come.” – ELIZABETH PETERS “IF I’D KILLED HIM WHEN I MET HIM… is sheer pleasure. The book moves like a streak and all the storylines are fascinating. To tantalize you further, let me say that this story has the most unusual sexual scene in the world of mystery literature.” – Romantic Times *** Southern sleuth Elizabeth MacPherson acts as official investigator for her brother's Virginia law firm and tests her skills solving two sensational murders and a third crime unsolved for a century.

This collection of short fiction contains chilling tales of suspense and narratives that embrace southern Appalachian locales and themes: a mountain healer skirmishes with a serial killer; a reincarnated murder victim seeks revenge; and honeymooners in the groom's ancestral home are having second thoughts.

"A delightful sequel to Bimbos of the Death Sun" (Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine) by the Edgar Award-winning author of the beloved Elizabeth MacPherson mysteries. When murder strikes at the reunion of a SF fan club, it falls to writer Jay Omega to turn sleuth-and separate science fiction from fact to catch the killer.

Frances Silver, a girl of 18, was charged in 1832 with murdering her husband. Lafayette Harkryder is also 18 when he is accused of murder and he is to be the first convict to die in the electric chair. Both Frances and Lafayette hid the truth. But can the miscarriages of justice be prevented?

“Lovely in Her Bones is a parable of modern Appalachia, disguised as a mystery.” – LIA MATERA “Sharyn McCrumb’s first novel, Sick of Shadows, is one of the best and funniest comic mysteries anyone’s ever written. Lovely in Her Bones is equally recommendable.” – Roanoke Times World-News “Lovely in Her Bones is a lighthearted romp of a murder mystery leavened with hearty helpings of backwoods medicine, Indian lore, and anthropology… A fun read.” – AARON ELKINS “Like The Name of the Rose-offers unexpected rewards and cerebral nourishment… Sharyn McCrumb writes with style and humor. Lovely in Her Bones… is a well-researched and engaging whodunit.” – West Coast Review of Books "Who but Sharyn McCrumb can make a skull with a bullet hole funny? Those who like sardonic wit, slightly bent characters, and good fun will love LOVELY IN HER BONES." Tony Hillerman The sequel to SICK OF SHADOWS. When an Appalachian dig to determine if an obscure Indian tribe in North Carolina can lay legal claim to the land they live on is stopped on account of murder, Elizabeth MacPherson – eager student of the rites of the past and mysteries of the present – starts digging deep. And when she mixes a little modern know-how with some old-fashioned suspicions, Elizabeth comes up with a batch of answers that surprise even the experts…

John Sevier had not taken much interest in the American Revolution. Homesteading in the Carolina mountains, Sevier was too busy fighting Indians and taming the wilderness to worry much about a far-off war, but when an arrogant British officer sends a message over the mountains, threatening to burn the settlers' farms and kill their families, the Revolutionary War becomes personal.That abrasive officer is British Army Major Patrick Ferguson, who is both charmingly antagonistic and surprisingly endearing. The younger son of a Scottish earl, Ferguson suffers constant misfortunes, making his dedication and courage count for nothing. When he loses the use of his arm from an injury at Brandywine, his commander sends him south, away from the war—which, in 1780, George Washington and the Continental Army are losing. Ordered to recruit wealthy Southern planters to the British cause, Ferguson courts disaster by provoking the frontiersmen, and suddenly the...