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A review by attytheresa
She Walks These Hills by Sharyn McCrumb
4.0
I've had a copy of this on my TBR forever - since it was published in the 1990s. Not sure why I never read it, although likely because during that period, I was looking more for silly and fluffy cozy mysteries as opposed to ones with darker themes. Not that this was all that dark in truth.
A ghost walks Appalachia - a young woman making a 100 mile trek through the wilderness back home after escaping from the indians who kidnapped her and took her to West Virginia. Jeremy, a graduate student studying these folklore tales decides that to write a proper dissertation about Katie Wyler, the 18th Century young woman who made this trek, he needs to at least hike part of her journey. Nevermind that a hike for him is walking to the car and wilderness is an unmown backyard in suburbia. About the time Jeremy starts planning his hike, Harm Sorley, a 63 year old mentally ill (memory disease) murderer serving a life term escapes prison and is believed to be heading home to Appalachia, hiking through the same wilderness. And Martha, the dispatcher for the sheriff's office in Hamelin, a town in Appalachia that was Harm's home, goes on probation as a deputy. There are other characters - primarily Sabrina a young mother in a troubled marriage and Hank the Yank, a local DJ who becomes intrigued by Harm's story - whose stories interweave with the other main threads and contributing to the grand finale. Nearly everyone in the story is on some kind of journey.
I really enjoyed this one - the mystery, the writing, the characters. There is plenty of humor and wit as well as pathos and tragedy. I feel it did an excellent job of intertwining contemporary Appalachia as well as its folklore and history while creating an interesting, complex mystery/ghost story and likeable characters. The villains are recognizable and not front and center.
I give it 4.5 stars - I found the finale a tad over-orchestrated. McCrumb does a masterful job bringing all the threads together, and while I understand why there were so many to braid together at the end, I think it could have done with one or two less to avoid the ending looking contrived. This particular edition has a lot of wonderful additional materials.
A ghost walks Appalachia - a young woman making a 100 mile trek through the wilderness back home after escaping from the indians who kidnapped her and took her to West Virginia. Jeremy, a graduate student studying these folklore tales decides that to write a proper dissertation about Katie Wyler, the 18th Century young woman who made this trek, he needs to at least hike part of her journey. Nevermind that a hike for him is walking to the car and wilderness is an unmown backyard in suburbia. About the time Jeremy starts planning his hike, Harm Sorley, a 63 year old mentally ill (memory disease) murderer serving a life term escapes prison and is believed to be heading home to Appalachia, hiking through the same wilderness. And Martha, the dispatcher for the sheriff's office in Hamelin, a town in Appalachia that was Harm's home, goes on probation as a deputy. There are other characters - primarily Sabrina a young mother in a troubled marriage and Hank the Yank, a local DJ who becomes intrigued by Harm's story - whose stories interweave with the other main threads and contributing to the grand finale. Nearly everyone in the story is on some kind of journey.
I really enjoyed this one - the mystery, the writing, the characters. There is plenty of humor and wit as well as pathos and tragedy. I feel it did an excellent job of intertwining contemporary Appalachia as well as its folklore and history while creating an interesting, complex mystery/ghost story and likeable characters. The villains are recognizable and not front and center.
I give it 4.5 stars - I found the finale a tad over-orchestrated. McCrumb does a masterful job bringing all the threads together, and while I understand why there were so many to braid together at the end, I think it could have done with one or two less to avoid the ending looking contrived. This particular edition has a lot of wonderful additional materials.