To Kill A Mockingbird collides with Deliverance! In the long and jagged shadow of Riddle Top lies a darkling mountain world—-a world of unholy mirth and madness, of gods and demons you never knew existed. Hitch a wild-ass ride with two runaway teens—-the runty but tough preacher's girl Tizzy Polk and her punk boyfriend Matthew. They might think they are Bonnie and Clyde, but they might also race headlong into an evil far greater than their own. They may come to see things darkly different and seldom seen on that bewitched mountain known below as Riddle Top. Take care, folks say in story and song. Watch your step. And beware up there where the wind doth howl like the hellhound electric. Up there, where Tizzy and Matthew come knocking on a strange door. For nobody knows what awaits once you've disturbed your disturbing host. Your hands are in his hands now. And the scariest thing of all? He's got all the time in this world. Stark, poetic, haunting: Wicked Temper unfolds like a waking fever dream, a rockabilly heart of darkness. The kind you can kill but it don't stop beating. Wicked Temper is the premeditated prequel to Randy Thornhorn's The Kestrel Waters . "Thornhorn, where the hell have you been?" ~ William Peter Blatty (author of The Exorcist ) "One of the South's wildest new voices..." ~ The Oxford American Magazine "An unnerving literary experience ... The lovechild of William Faulkner and H.P. Lovecraft, Thornhorn, with his unique narrative style and twisted insight into Southern life, makes this novel unforgettable. Thornhorn's masterful dialect, rich description, and immersive use of atmospherics ... the power of this story undeniably comes from the author's darkly lyrical voice, and his sinister reimagining of Appalachia virtually comes alive on the page." ~ Kirkus Reviews "An instant Southern classic ... Wicked Temper is not good. It's great ... in the vein of William Faulkner, Harper Lee, Cormac McCarthy, and Erskine Caldwell. Yet, it is a much darker voice all its own. There's an underlying deep moan of creepiness throughout this story. You feel the soaring trek of ruin the main characters Tizzy and Matthew are on. They set out on a life of crime to escape their dismal childhoods only to fall into the hands of a charismatic backwoods deviant. This book deserves to be read and shared for generations to come." ~ R.W. Ridley (author of The Oz Chronicles ) "Thornhorn, where the hell have you been?" ~ William Peter Blatty (author of The Exorcist ) "One of the South's wildest new voices." ~ The Oxford American Magazine . Randy Thornhorn is the teller of many tales, including this one, and this novel's sequel The Kestrel Waters . Author of the longest fiction ever published in The Oxford American Magazine, most of Mr. Thornhorn's stories occur in a displaced world, a fable-infested Southern region some would surely deem unsafe. He visits often, sometimes stays the night. Other nights he might be found on a wooded hilltop somewhere east of Montgomery in the land of Alabama. He seldom sees angels fly his skies. But magpies are another story.