A review by bookish1ifedeb
The Ballad of Tom Dooley by Sharyn McCrumb

4.0

I'm a fan of Sharon McCrumb's "ballad" series. She delves into the history and legends of North Carolina's mountain regions, and builds wonderful fictional tales based on the facts. In this book, she examines the tale of Tom Dula, hung for murdering a young woman in the years just after the Civil War. This case involved three unsavory women, all cousins, and the man who loved one but slept with all three, in a dark tale of adultery, jealousy and homicide. McCrumb parsed historical records and arrived at a plausible explanation for how events occurred, supporting what locals have long believed... that Tom Dula wasn't the killer. Worth a read, especially if you haven't sampled McCrumb's other books.