Sharyn McCrumb

Author Information
Sharyn McCrumb's Latest Book

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  • Bibliography:
    40 Books (3 Series)
  • First Book:
    January 1984
  • Latest Book:
    September 2017
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Full Series List in Order

A Ballad Novel

1 - If Ever I Return, Pretty Peggy-O (Apr-1990)
2 - The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter (Apr-1992)
3 - She Walks These Hills (Oct-1994)
4 - The Rosewood Casket (May-1996)
5 - The Ballad of Frankie Silver (May-1998)
6 - The Songcatcher (Jun-2001)
7 - Ghost Riders (Jul-2003)
8 - The Devil Amongst the Lawyers (Jul-2010)
9 - The Ballad of Tom Dooley (Sep-2011)
10 - King's Mountain (Sep-2013)
10.5 - Nora Bonesteel's Christmas Past (Oct-2014)

An Elizabeth MacPherson Mystery

1 - Sick of Shadows (1984)
2 - Lovely in Her Bones (1985)
3 - Highland Laddie Gone (1986)
4 - Paying the Piper (Nov-1988)
5 - The Windsor Knot (Sep-1990)
6 - Missing Susan (Sep-1991)
7 - MacPherson's Lament (1992)
8 - If I'd Killed Him When I Met Him... (Apr-1995)
9 - The PMS Outlaws (Sep-2000)

A Jay Omega Mystery

1 - Bimbos of the Death Sun (Mar-1987)
2 - Zombies of the Gene Pool (Feb-1992)

Book List in Order: 40 titles

  • Sick of Shadows

    • / Amateur Sleuth
    • Buy Buy
    An Elizabeth MacPherson Mystery - 1

    Another bride, Another groom, Another lazy afternoon... Of murder. ENGAGED TO BE MURDERED Eileen Chandler, of the very eccentric Georgia Chandlers, is all set to be married. Unfortunately nobody much likes the groom; they fear he's out to s...

  • Lovely in Her Bones

    • / Amateur Sleuth
    • Buy Buy
    An Elizabeth MacPherson Mystery - 2

    AN ANCIENT INDIAN BURIAL GROUND BECOMES A SITE FOR VERY MODERN MURDER.... Ever the amateur sleuth and inquisitive student of life, Elizabeth MacPherson has signed on to an archaeological dig to help determine if an obscure Indian tribe in the Nort...

  • Highland Laddie Gone

    • / Amateur Sleuth
    • Buy Buy
    An Elizabeth MacPherson Mystery - 3

    “Sharyn McCrumb transforms mystery into astonishing literature.” -- The Cleveland Plain DealerForensic anthropologist Elizabeth MacPherson gets a chance to revel in the rites of the old country at the annual Glencoe Mountain Games, the Scottish f...

  • Bimbos of the Death Sun

    A Jay Omega Mystery - 1

    A sci-fi convention gets a dose of true crime in this Edgar Award-winning mystery by the New York Times bestselling author of the Ballad novels.When Virginia Tech professor James Owen Mega wrote a fictional account of his real-life research...

  • Paying the Piper

    An Elizabeth MacPherson Mystery - 4

    A motley crew of American and British professionals and amateurs gather for an archaeological dig into prehistoric burial rites on a small Scottish island. The quarters are cramped, cold, and Scottish-summer soggy. Tempers are already simmering when ...

  • Our Separate Days

  • If Ever I Return, Pretty Peggy-O

    A Ballad Novel - 1

    Sheriff Spencer Arrowood keeps the peace in his small Tennessee town most of the time. Every once in a while, though, something goes wrong. When 1960s folksinger Peggy Muryan moves to town seeking solitude and a career comeback, her idyll is shatt...

  • The Windsor Knot

    An Elizabeth MacPherson Mystery - 5

    Racing to complete her doctoral research, Elizabeth MacPherson is completely booked for the summer -- until her Scottish fiance calls from across the seas with a once-in-a-lifetime invitation to tea with Her Majesty the Queen. There's a hitch, of cou...

  • Missing Susan

    An Elizabeth MacPherson Mystery - 6

    The unsinkable Elizabeth MacPherson is on tour, traveling with a charmingly gruesome caravan of Americans visiting England's most famous murder sites. The cantankerous and condescending guide, Rowan Rover, thinks he's shockproof--until a mild-mannere...



  • MacPherson's Lament

    • / Amateur Sleuth
    • Buy Buy
    An Elizabeth MacPherson Mystery - 7

    Down South the Civil War isn't something you learn about in school. It's a chilling presence that hasn't quite passed into history. Forensic anthropologist Elizabeth MacPherson feels its pull when she ventures to Danville, Virginia, to save her broth...

  • Nine Lives to Live

    in Cat Crimes 2
    • / General Fiction
    • Buy Buy

    From the pens of today's most prolific, popular, and feline-fancying mystery writers comes CAT CRIMES 2, a chilling collection of original stories that will leave cat- and mystery-lovers purring for more. Inside you'll encounter the Bogart drawl of P...

  • Zombies of the Gene Pool

    A Jay Omega Mystery - 2

    In the 1950s, a group of young science fiction writers, dreaming of literary immortality and calling themselves the Lanthanides, buried a time capsule with their stories and relics from the time. Now, in the 1990s, when several of them have become fa...

  • The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter

    A Ballad Novel - 2

    Everyone in Dark Hollow, Tennessee, knew that old Nora Bonesteel had "the Sight." So naturally she was the first to know about the murder-suicide. Four members of the Underhill family lay dead on a run-down farm, and the two children who survived h...

  • Happiness is a Dead Poet

    in Malice Domestic 1

    CHARLOTTE MACLEOD ruffles feathers on Beacon Hill...BARBARA PAUL visits with a fatally clumsy clan...D.R. MEREDITH tells a murderer to go fly a kite...AUDREY PETERSON pursues a shadowy gentleman caller...VALERIE FRANKEL tracks a catnapper in Brooklyn...

  • Gentle Reader

    in Malice Domestic 3

    Acclaimed Agatha Award-winning author Nancy Pickard dishes up a perfectly delicious new feast of original mystery stories, served up in classic Agatha Christie style. Celebrating the enduring legacy of the most beloved crime writer of all time, MALIC...

  • Partners in Crime

    A collection of short mysteries features investigating partners, as authors Sharyn McCrumb, Susan Dunlap, Carolyn G. Hart, and others team up private investigators with amateur sleuths, mismatched cops, and rival attorneys. Original....

  • She Walks These Hills

    A Ballad Novel - 3

    Fear more chilling than approaching winter blankets the Appalachian community of Dark Hollow, Tennessee. Some believe that the ghost of Katie Wyler, kidnapped by Shawnee two hundred years ago, is once again roaming the hills. Even more frightening, a...

  • If I'd Killed Him When I Met Him...

    An Elizabeth MacPherson Mystery - 8

    When forensic anthropologist Elizabeth MacPherson becomes the official P.I. for her brother Bill's fledgling Virginia law firm, she quickly takes on two complex cases. Eleanor Royden, a perfect lawyer's wife for twenty years, has shot her ex-husband ...

  • The Rosewood Casket

    A Ballad Novel - 4

    Randall Stargill lies dying on his Appalachian farm, and his four sons have come home to build him a coffin from his precious cache of rosewood. Like a hovering vulture, a local real estate developer is readying an offer for the farm. And mountain wi...



  • A Predatory Woman

    in Modern Treasury of Great Detective and Murder Mysteries

    "

    “An absolutely first-rate anthology. . . a thoughtful and intelligent paean to crime fiction.” — New York Sun

    #1 New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth George serves up a century''s worth of superb crim...

  • Foggy Mountain Breakdown & Other Stories

    "In an earlier life, McCrumb must have been a balladeer, singing of restless spirits, star-crossed lovers, and the consoling beauty of nature. . . . The overall effect is spellbinding."--The Washington Post Bestselling author Sharyn McCrumb is "a bor...

  • The Ballad of Frankie Silver

    A Ballad Novel - 5

    In 1833 Frankie Silver became the first woman in North Carolina to be hanged for murder. But what really happened so long ago becomes an obsession for Sheriff Spencer Arrowood, as the parallels between two crimes more than a hundred .years apart beco...

  • Malice Domestic 7

    A thrilling collection of the most befuddling mysteries includes contributions from such masters of the genre as Stephanie Barron, Dean James, Amy Myers, and Michael Bond, and presents such cases as a deadly seance that brings about horrible truths a...

  • Lark in the Morning

    in Crime Through Time III

    ANDREW GREELEY introduces a monk of the Middle Ages who investigates corruption in the Vatican to crack "The Case of the Murdered Pope"... Sir John Fielding, a blind eighteenth-century magistrate, confronts crime at a stuffy dinner party in BRUCE ALE...

  • The PMS Outlaws

    An Elizabeth MacPherson Mystery - 9

    Hospitalized for depression over her missing husband, forensic anthropologist Elizabeth MacPherson is pleased to discover that insanity liberates one from polite hypocrisy. Out in the real world, Elizabeth's brother, Bill, has bought a stately old ma...

  • The Songcatcher

    A Ballad Novel - 6

    Folksinger Lark McCourry is haunted by the memory of a song. Passed down through generations, it carried her ancestors from a Scottish island, through the pages of American history, to western North Carolina. Over the years, though, the memory of the...

  • Ghost Riders

    A Ballad Novel - 7

    Civil War reenactors have gathered in the Appalachian Mountains to stage the lesser-known skirmishes of the conflict. Joining them is part-Cherokee mountain man Rattler. He is gifted with the ability to see spirits -- and cursed with the knowledge ...

  • St. Dale

    The Dale Earnhardt Memorial Pilgrimage is the last trip Judge Bekasu Holifield would have chosen for her vacation. But this year it's her sister Justine's turn to make their plans, and soon Bekasu's boarding a silver cruise bus for a tour of Southern...

  • Transgressions, Volume 4

    New York Times bestsellers Sharyn McCrumb, Joyce Carol Oates, and Anne Perry each provided a brand-new, never-before-published tale for this unique collection of stories edited by New York Times bestselling author and mystery legend Ed McBain. "T...



  • Once Around the Track

    Now McCrumb brings her inimitable style to a world of fast tracks and faster characters with a sharp, funny, and affectionate look at what happens when a wheel man with a reputation is backed by women with a mission... Racing fans have never seen a...

  • Dead Hand

    in Blood Lite

    BLOOD LITE ...a collection of entertaining tales that puts the fun back into dark fiction, with ironic twists and tongue-in-cheek wit to temper the jagged edge. Charlaine Harris reveals the dark side of going green, when a quartet of die-hard env...

  • Faster Pastor

    Camber Berkley, a young stock car driver, wrecks his car on a winding mountain road, landing right in the midst of the funeral of an elderly NASCAR fan. As punishment for his spectacular car wreck, the local authorities of the small Tennessee town of...

  • The Devil Amongst the Lawyers

    A Ballad Novel - 8

    IN 1935, a beautiful young schoolteacher is accused of murdering her coal-miner father in a Virginia mountain community. National journalists descend on Wise County, intent upon exonerating the defendant, and on stereotyping the mountain community t...

  • Sharyn Mccrumb's Appalachia

    A collection of essays on the Mountain South by New York Times best-selling author Sharyn McCrumb. Contents include 'Keepers of the Legends,' 'A Novelist Looks at the Land,' 'The Celts and the Appalachians,' Magic Realism in Appalachia,' 'Nora Bonest...

  • The Ballad of Tom Dooley

    A Ballad Novel - 9

    A literary triumph -- what began as a fictional re-telling of the historical account of one of the most famous mountain ballads of all time became an astonishing revelation of the real culprit responsible for the murder of Laura Foster Hang down y...

  • Fairy Tale Princesses of the Civil War: Rattler and Celtic Magic

    Rattler, the curmudgeonly shaman of Sharyn McCrumb's Ballad novels, travels to the battlefield at Gettysburg to explore a supernatural element of the Civil War. Then, in Rattler and the Wild Hunt, Rattler confronts supernatural beings brought to the ...

  • King's Mountain

    A Ballad Novel - 10

    John Sevier had not taken much interest in the American Revolution. Homesteading in the Carolina mountains, Sevier was too busy fighting Indians and taming the wilderness to worry much about a far-off war, but when an arrogant British officer sends a...

  • Nora Bonesteel's Christmas Past

    A Ballad Novel - 10.5

    When someone buys the old Honeycutt house, Nora Bonesteel is glad to see some life brought back to the old mansion, even if it is by summer people. But when they decide to stay through Christmas, they find more than old memories in the walls. On ...

  • Prayers the Devil Answers

    Sharyn McCrumb, New York Times bestselling author of the acclaimed Ballad series set in Appalachia, explores the ties between a reluctant female sheriff and a condemned man in this stunning and powerfully written Depression-era novel. Years later,...



  • The Unquiet Grave

    From New York Times bestselling author Sharyn McCrumb comes a finely wrought novel set in nineteenth-century West Virginia, based on the true story of one of the strangest murder trials in American history -- the case of the Greenbrier Ghost. Laki...

Award-Winning Books by Sharyn McCrumb

Bimbos of the Death Sun
1988 Edgar Allan Poe Award -- Paperback Original
If Ever I Return, Pretty Peggy-O
1991 Macavity Award -- Mystery Novel
If I'd Killed Him When I Met Him...
1995 Agatha Award -- Novel
She Walks These Hills
1994 Agatha Award -- Novel
1995 Anthony Award -- Novel
1995 Macavity Award -- Mystery Novel
1995 Nero Wolfe Award -- Novel


Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Sharyn McCrumb has published 40 books.

Sharyn McCrumb does not have a new book coming out soon. The latest book, The Unquiet Grave, was published in September 2017.

The first book by Sharyn McCrumb, Sick of Shadows, was published in January 1984.

Yes. Sharyn McCrumb has 3 series.
Author Series
Top Authors in Women Sleuths
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