Carol Miller makes a memorable debut in Murder and Moonshine, the first of an intriguing new mystery series. All small towns have secrets---and plenty of them---as every small-town waitress knows. Daisy is no different. A young, recently separated waitress at H & P's Diner in sleepy southwestern Virginia, she hears more than her fair share of neighborhood gossip while serving plates of hash and peach cobbler. But when a reclusive old man shows up at the diner one day, only to drop dead a few minutes later, Daisy quickly learns that some secrets are more dangerous to keep than others---especially when there are money and moonshine involved. The man's death was suspicious, and no longer sure who she can trust, Daisy turns sleuth while also seeking to protect her sick mother and keeping a handle on Aunt Emily, her goading, trigger-happy landlord. Caught between whiskey and guns, a handsome ATF agent and a moonshine-brewing sweet talker, and a painful past and a dangerous present, Daisy has her work cut out for her. There's trouble brewing in her small town, and before it passes, many secrets will come to light.

Secrets, lies, and a splash of moonshine: a classic country house whodunit with a distinctly Southern twist. After losing her husband and her home, small-town girl Daisy McGovern moves in with her invalid mother at an old inn in sleepy southwestern Virginia. When the inn's eccentric proprietor, Aunt Emily, decides to throw a weekend party for a small group of friends and neighbors, everybody is excited--until a winter storm approaches and one of the guests is crushed by an antique bookcase during the night. At first, the death appears to be an accident. But as the storm worsens and the sheriff is unable to reach them, suspicion slowly grows. Was it murder? After the inn loses power and a second death occurs, it's clear to Daisy that one among them is a killer. But who? The young, new, secretive maid? The antique-peddling pair of spinster sisters? Her not-so-welcome in-laws? The peculiar house-hunting couple? The supposedly stranded motorist? With no way to leave and no way to get help, Daisy's only contacts to the outside world are her best friend Beulah and the always charming (and equally troublesome) moonshiner, Rick Balsam. Trapped with a clever and seemingly undetectable murderer, she must unravel the truth before the party ends with her funeral.

It began with the best of intentions. Worried about the effects of alcohol on American families, mothers and civic leaders started a movement to outlaw drinking in public places. Over time, their protests, petitions, and activism paid off—when a Constitional Amendment banning the sale and consumption of alcohol was ratified, it was hailed as the end of public drunkenness, alcoholism, and a host of other social ills related to booze. Instead, it began a decade of lawlessness, when children smuggled (and drank) illegal alcohol, the most upright citizens casually broke the law, and a host of notorious gangsters entered the public eye. Filled with period art and photographs, anecdotes, and portraits of unique characters from the era, this fascinating book looks at the rise and fall of the disastrous social experiment known as Prohibition. Bootleg is a 2011 Kirkus Best Teen Books of the Year title. One of School Library Journal's Best Nonfiction Books of 2011. YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction Finalist in 2012.

Nothing but clear, 100-proof American history. Hooch. White lightning. White whiskey. Mountain dew. Moonshine goes by many names. So what is it, really? Technically speaking, “moonshine” refers to untaxed liquor made in an unlicensed still. In the United States, it’s typically corn that’s used to make the clear, unaged beverage, and it’s the mountain people of the American South who are most closely associated with the image of making and selling backwoods booze at night—by the light of the moon—to avoid detection by law enforcement. In Moonshine: A Cultural History of America’s Infamous Liquor, writer Jaime Joyce explores America’s centuries-old relationship with moonshine through fact, folklore, and fiction. From the country’s early adoption of Scottish and Irish home distilling techniques and traditions to the Whiskey Rebellion of the late 1700s to a comparison of the moonshine industry pre- and post-Prohibition, plus a look at modern-day craft distilling, Joyce examines the historical context that gave rise to moonshining in America and explores its continued appeal. But even more fascinating is Joyce’s entertaining and eye-opening analysis of moonshine’s widespread effect on U.S. pop culture: she illuminates the fact that moonshine runners were NASCAR’s first marquee drivers; explores the status of white whiskey as the unspoken star of countless Hollywood film and television productions, including The Dukes of Hazzard, Thunder Road, and Gator; and the numerous songs inspired by making ’shine from such folk and country artists as Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Alan Jackson, and Dolly Parton. So while we can’t condone making your own illegal liquor, reading Moonshine will give you a new perspective on the profound implications that underground moonshine-making has had on life in America.

"As Daisy McGovern knows all too well, it isn't easy being a young, small town waitress at the local diner. And it becomes even harder just as she's trying to stitch her life back together and salvage her job by converting the diner into a bakery when a mysterious robbery occurs and one of the thieves ends up dead on the bakery floor with a chef's knife in his chest"--

Moonshine Murders By: Karen Cartwright Moonshine Murders centers around the Cartwright family of Mannington, West Virginia, in 1877 with Thornton F. Cartwright at its head. He walks a tight rope between murder trials, crooked whiskey, passing the queer, and vigilantes, trying to keep his family intact all the while operating a moonshine gang out of Marion County. Nancy Cartwright is the local Granny Woman in Marion County. She is every bit as resolute and passionate as her husband when it comes to family. Nor have advancing years lessened Thornton and Nancy's passion for each other.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A twisting, haunting true-life murder mystery about one of the most monstrous crimes in American history, from the author of The Wager and The Lost City of Z, “one of the preeminent adventure and true-crime writers working today."—New York Magazine • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • NOW A MARTIN SCORSESE PICTURE “A shocking whodunit…What more could fans of true-crime thrillers ask?”—USA Today “A masterful work of literary journalism crafted with the urgency of a mystery.” —The Boston Globe In the 1920s, the richest people per capita in the world were members of the Osage Nation in Oklahoma. After oil was discovered beneath their land, the Osage rode in chauffeured automobiles, built mansions, and sent their children to study in Europe. Then, one by one, the Osage began to be killed off. The family of an Osage woman, Mollie Burkhart, became a prime target. One of her relatives was shot. Another was poisoned. And it was just the beginning, as more and more Osage were dying under mysterious circumstances, and many of those who dared to investigate the killings were themselves murdered. As the death toll rose, the newly created FBI took up the case, and the young director, J. Edgar Hoover, turned to a former Texas Ranger named Tom White to try to unravel the mystery. White put together an undercover team, including a Native American agent who infiltrated the region, and together with the Osage began to expose one of the most chilling conspiracies in American history. Look for David Grann’s latest bestselling book, The Wager!