"Ms. McCrumb writes with quiet fire and maybe a little mountain magic. . . . She plucks the mysteries from people's lives and works these dark narrative threads into Appalachian legends older than the hills. Like every true storyteller, she has the Sight."― The New York Times Book Review In 1935, a beautiful young schoolteacher is accused of murdering her coal-miner father in a Virginia mountain community. National journalists descend on Wise County, intent upon exonerating the defendant, and on stereotyping the mountain community to satisfy their Depression-era readers. But local cub reporter Carl Jennings writes what he sees: an ordinary town and a defendant who is probably guilty. The novel resonates with the present: an economic depression; a deadly Japanese earthquake; the rise of political fanatics; and a media culture turning news stories into soap operas for the diversion of the masses. A literary tour de force, The Devil Amongst the Lawyers continues the Ballard saga by examining social issues that go well beyond the fate of one defendant. It is a testament to Sharyn McCrumb's lyrical and poetic writing about the mountain South. “The story begins with a train ride, a magic carpet that carries us back to the year 1935 and into the heart of a famous murder trial. As we head for the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, we get to know the characters, those journalists and photographers and sensation-seekers who always turn up for a good spectacle. Sharyn McCrumb re-creates this time and place with such precision, the reader forgets that seventy-five years have passed since that faraway event in that isolated place where the outer world clashes with superstition and folklore. This is storytelling as those Celtic bards meant it to be: lyrical, haunting, and truly unforgettable.” ―Cathie Pelletier, author of The Funeral Makers and Running the Bulls “Sharyn McCrumb re-creates this time and place with such precision, the reader forgets that seventy-five years have passed since that faraway event in that isolated place where the outer world clashes with superstition and folklore. This is storytelling as those Celtic bards meant it to be: lyrical, haunting, and truly unforgettable.” ― Cathie Pelletier, author of The Funeral Makers and Running the Bulls “Wow! Sharyn McCrumb is not just a writer---in fact, she's a conjurer, a genius, a wordsmith, an entertainer, a wit, a scholar, a wise woman, and a storyteller of the first rank. The Devil Amongst the Lawyers is flat-out brilliant and transcendent, a book that gets everything exactly right. Simply put, novels don't come any better than this.” ― Martin Clark, author of The Legal Limit and The Many Aspects of Mobile Home Living “ The Devil Amongst the Lawyers is a superb novel that, once started, is so well written and so expertly researched that readers will find it impossible to put down. It is also a scathing indictment of how Appalachia has been, and continues to be, stereotyped by a supposedly objective media. Bravo!” ― Ron Rash, author of Serena “There are few writers today who are able to blend past and present, tradition and law, legends and headlines in a wholly credible fashion-- Tony Hillerman springs inevitably to mind. Sharyn McCrumb is another; her widely acclaimed Ballad Series is one of the finest being written today.” ― Bookpage on Sharyn McCrumb “Ms. McCrumb writes with quiet fire and maybe a little mountain magic.... She plucks the mysteries from people's lives and works these dark narrative threads into Appalachian legends older than the hills. Like every true storyteller, she has the Sight.” ― The New York Times Book Review on The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter SHARYN MCCRUMB is the author of The Rosewood Casket , She Walks These Hills and many other acclaimed novels. Her books have been named Notable Books of the Year by the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times . She was named a “Virginia Woman of History” for Achievement in Literature. She lives and writes in the Virginia Blue Ridge, less than a hundred miles from where her family settled in 1790 in the Smoky Mountains that divide North Carolina and Tennessee. The Devil Amongst the Lawyers A Ballad Novel By Sharyn McCrumb St. Martin's Griffin Copyright © 2011 Sharyn McCrumb All right reserved. ISBN: 9780312573621 ONE NARROW ROAD TO A FAR PROVINCE   Each day is a journey, and the journey itself home. —MATSUO BASH?   Two hours west of Washington, Henry Jernigan finally gave up on his book. This Mr. John Fox, Jr., might have been a brilliant author—although personally he doubted it—but the clattering of the train shook the page so much that he found himself reading the same tiresome line over and over until his head began to ache. The November chill seemed to seep through the sides of the railroad car, and even in his leather gloves and overcoat, he did not feel warm. He thought of taking a fortifying nip of brandy from the silver flask secreted