Recently retired NCIS agent Billy Boy Boyd has just returned home to Tennessee. Hes looking forward to enjoying some free time, but that fantasy doesnt last long. His friend Blinky, an often drunk and bitter Vietnam veteran, has just called about an apparent suicide down by the river. There isnt a body yetjust a suicide note and the remains of a hand. A search party is formed, and Blinky, Boyd, and his high school sweetheart, Smokey, start combing the area by the Nolichucky River for the victim. But its soon apparent that this investigation may be more than they bargained for. A missing girl, a jilted lover, the Mafia, and revenge bring Billy to a disturbing conclusion: that murder is the order of the day, and he might be next on the hit list. In a novel filled with every deadly sin in a land of moonshine and legends, O. Ray Knapp sweeps you to the whitewater rivers of the high Appalachian Mountains, where the peace and tranquility of a small, mountain community is rocked by murder.

Recently retired NCIS agent Billy Boy Boyd has just returned home to Tennessee. He's looking forward to enjoying some free time, but that fantasy doesn't last long. His friend Blinky, an often drunk and bitter Vietnam veteran, has just called about an apparent suicide down by the river. There isn't a body yet just a suicide note and the remains of a hand. A search party is formed, and Blinky, Boyd, and his high school sweetheart, Smokey, start combing the area by the Nolichucky River for the victim. But it's soon apparent that this investigation may be more than they bargained for. A missing girl, a jilted lover, the Mafia, and revenge bring Billy to a disturbing conclusion: that murder is the order of the day, and he might be next on the hit list. In a novel filled with every deadly sin in a land of moonshine and legends, O. Ray Knapp sweeps you to the whitewater rivers of the high Appalachian Mountains, where the peace and tranquility of a small, mountain community is rocked by murder.

This epic journey is his last chance to start a new life. After being cast out of his Blackfoot village for his kindness to the Nez Perce captives, Chogan travels west in search of meaning for his life. Meaning that doesn’t require killing or torturing innocent people. Though the lovely face of Telípe, a Nez Perce woman, is imprinted on his heart, he avoids her village. She deserves a happy life with her husband and coming child. With her husband dead and the birth of her babe imminent, Telípe’s reality looks nothing like she planned. She’s been forced to return to the village where she grew up and the chaos of her family’s lodge—with all her boisterous younger brothers. She desperately desires to start a new life for herself and the babe growing within her, but she can’t seem to climb above the mire of her past. When she stumbles into the brave who’d shown her kindness during her captivity, something ignites within her—a new hope. Chogan’s determination to stay and help Telípe is thwarted by her people’s fear and hatred for his tribe—especially since he was among last winter’s kidnappers. It doesn’t matter that he did everything he could to keep her and her unborn child safe and comfortable during that awful event. But as a new predator threatens the safety of the village, Chogan determines to take down the massive wildcat that’s already injured several children—including one of Telípe’s younger brothers. When the danger escalates, Chogan is faced with an impossible choice. No matter which option he chooses, his life will never be the same—nor that of the woman he’s come to love. From a USA Today bestselling author comes another epic journey through breathless landscapes and adventure so intense, lives will never be the same.

A serial killer is loose in the Smoky Mountains.In the fall of 1969, a backwoods farmer and his wife were murdered by four drunken hunters. The farmer's three dogs, a horse and two fawns were also killed. Two young sons managed to escape but were unable to identify the killers. The murders were never solved.Now, decades late, someone has decided to take revenge by killing one person every season in a manner that shocks even the most hardened law officer.In the small town of Townsend, Tennessee the four-man police force begins the daunting task of solving the murders.With vivid characters and familiar Smoky Mountain settings, the reader will not be disappointed in this fast-paced thriller with an intriguing climax.

Written in response to the Hawk's Nest Tunnel disaster of 1931 in Gauley Bridge, West Virginia, The Book of the Dead is an important part of West Virginia's cultural heritage and a powerful account of one of the worst industrial catastrophes in American history. The poems collected here investigate the roots of a tragedy that killed hundreds of workers, most of them African American. They are a rare engagement with the overlap between race and environment in Appalachia. Published for the first time alongside photographs by Nancy Naumburg, who accompanied Rukeyser to Gauley Bridge in 1936, this edition of The Book of the Dead includes an introduction by Catherine Venable Moore, whose writing on the topic has been anthologized in Best American Essays.

The American Villain: Encyclopedia of Bad Guys in Comics, Film, and Television seeks to provide one go-to reference for the study of the most popular and iconic villains in American popular culture. Since the 1980s, pop culture has focused on what makes a villain a villain. The Joker, Darth Vader, and Hannibal Lecter have all been placed under the microscope to get to the origins of their villainy. Additionally, such bad guys as Angelus from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Barnabas Collins from Dark Shadows have emphasized the desire for redemption—in even the darkest of villains. Various incarnations of Lucifer/Satan have even gone so far as to explore the very foundations of what we consider "evil." The American Villain: Encyclopedia of Bad Guys in Comics, Film, and Television seeks to collect all of those stories into one comprehensive volume. The volume opens with essays about villains in popular culture, followed by 100 A–Z entries on the most notorious bad guys in film, comics, and more. Sidebars highlight ancillary points of interest, such as authors, creators, and tropes that illuminate the motives of various villains. A glossary of key terms and a bibliography provide students with resources to continue their study of what makes the "baddest" among us so bad.

A good looking man with a gun, holding a beautiful woman in a revealing dress and a crowd of ghostly figures standing beside a torrid river...hallucination or reality? 'River of Souls' is 'naughty'-a novel that will appeal to those interested in love and explicit sex, animal welfare, brutal violence, insanity, fate and magic. This book is based around the classic theme of good versus evil and how ordinary lives get ensnared in it.