Historian Jeremy Cobb is backpacking on the Appalachian Trail, attempting to retrace the tragic journey of eighteen-year-old Katie Wyler, who was captured by the Shawnee after the massacre of her pioneer family in Mitchell County, North Carolina. In late summer, Katie escaped from a Shawnee village on the banks of the Ohio, and followed the rivers through the wilderness to find her way home - a brave journey that ended in sorrow. Jeremy, a city-bred graduate student with no trail experience, is determined to complete his scholarly quest, unaware that his journey will be both a trial of hardships and a mystical experience. He does not know that the spirit of Katie Wyler is still seen wandering the hills, trying to get home. Mountain wise woman Nora Bonesteel sees her every autumn "when the air is crisp and the light is slanted and the birds are still." Hiram Sorley, known as Harm, is also at large in the Appalachian wilderness. Sorely, who has escaped from the Northeast Correctional Center in Mountain City, Tennessee, is the focus of a wide-spread manhunt involving most of the area's law enforcement officers. There's just one problem: nobody wants him caught. Harm has become a folk hero. Sheriff Spencer Arrowood feels sorry for Harm, imprisoned for life for killing a hated local bureaucrat. There is even some doubt about Harm's guilt. Besides, the elderly convict has Korsakoff's syndrome, a disease that robs its sufferers of their recent memories. To Harm, it is always 1967. Harm doesn't even remember the crime. For Martha Ayers, who wants the job of deputy, catching Harm Sorely would be the best way to prove her fitness for the position. Harm, an Appalachian Don Quixote on the edge of reality, meets both Jeremy and the still-wandering Katie Wyler on his journey back to a home that isn't there anymore. He is the "last moonshiner," holding the dream of an unspoiled wilderness in the fragile web of his delusions. When he goes, it will be lost forever. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.

In 1779, Katie Wyler, 18, was captured by the Shawnee in North Carolina. The story of her escape and arduous journey home through hundreds of miles of Appalachian wilderness is the topic of ethno-historian Jeremy Cobb's thesis-and the thread which runs through the third of McCrumb's ballad novels (after The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter). As Cobb begins to retrace Katie's return journey, 63-year-old convicted murderer Hiram (Harm) Sorley escapes from a nearby prison. Suffering from Korsakoff's syndrome, he has no recent memory: old Harm is permanently stuck in the past. Hamelin, Tenn., police dispatcher Martha Ayers uses the opportunity to convince the sheriff to assign her as a deputy. One of her first duties is to calm a young mother who, angry at her inattentive husband, is threatening her baby with a butcher knife. Ayers and the sheriff must also warn Harm's ex-wife Rita that he has escaped. Acting as a kind of narrative conscience is a local deejay, a ``carpetbagger from Connecticut,'' who sees Harm as a folk hero from another era. Deftly building suspense, McCrumb weaves these colorful elements into her satisfying conclusion as she continues to reward her readers' high expectations. Mystery Guild selection; author tour. Copyright 1994 Cahners Business Information, Inc. From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information

A tale of an escaped convict from Edgar Award winner McCrumb.Copyright 1994 Cahners Business Information, Inc. From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information

YA--Mystery and folklore are skillfully blended in this contemporary Appalachian tale. Driving the plot are ``Harm'' (Hiram) Sorley, an aging prisoner suffering from recent memory loss, who receives a spiritual message to escape from prison and return home to North Carolina; history grad student Jeremy Cobb, who wants to hike the trail used by Katie Wyler in the late 1700s when she escaped from Indians who held her captive; and members of the sheriff's department who search for both of these men. Strong females also figure prominently in this title, not the least of whom is Katie Wyler, dead over 200 years, whose spectral image helps several characters. Assisting Sheriff Arrowwood is his newest deputy, Martha Ayers, who's determined to prove she can rise above the lot of dispatcher. When all these folks converge beside a burning trailer home, more than one mystery is solved. McCrumb's rich use of dialect, accompanied by both physical description of and folklore about the mountains, combine to produce an evocative, haunting story. This novel defies stereotypical mystery elements, offering instead a complete melange of character study, plot, and setting.Pam Spencer, Chapel Square Media Center, Fairfax County, VA Copyright 1995 Cahners Business Information, Inc. From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information

The hills along the border where Tennessee, Virginia, and North Carolina meet are full of walkers in Edgar-winner McCrumb's third Ballad-series story, but just miles from the Appalachian Trail, the wanderers meet each other only rarely. First among them is Katie Wyler, a teenage North Carolina settler kidnapped by Shawnees in 1779; escaping near the Ohio River, Katie plunged back through the wilderness, only to die the day she returned to her neighbors' home. Katie's ghost shares these hills with other troubled souls: a 63-year-old escaped convict, his memory befuddled by Korsakoff's syndrome; the convict's ex-wife and daughter; an isolated, frightened young mountain girl with a brutal husband and a crying baby; East Coast transplants Hank "the Yank" Kretzer, who checks out the convict's 25-year-old crime for his radio talk show (think of Chris on TV's Northern Exposure), and history graduate student Jeremy Cobb, obsessed with his dissertation topic (Katie Wyler), intent on following her centuries-old trail through the hills; and Martha Ayers, striving to move up from dispatcher to deputy on Sheriff Spencer Arrowood's staff while coping with Deputy Joe LeDonne's personal betrayal. As in her other Ballad novels, If Ever I Return, Pretty Peggy-O (1990) and The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter (1992), McCrumb celebrates her home country, probes the multilayered puzzles of past and present, and meditates on human suffering and the survival instinct with sensitivity and compassion. (Reviewed August 1994)0684195569Mary Carroll From: Syndetics Solutions, Inc. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.