Harvestman Lodge — Cameron Judd

When fledgling journalist and writer Eli Scudder joins the staff of a small daily newspaper in an East Tennessee county about to celebrate its bicentennial year of 1986, he encounters a piece of local history no one wants to talk about. What was the now-defunct secret society called the Fraternal Order of Tennessee Harvestmen, and what happened within the walls of its crumbling old lodge hall? Aided by girlfriend and fellow journalist Melinda Buckingham, an eccentric lawyer-turned-hermit hidden in a vegetation-shrouded house, and an inquisitive local minister unafraid to ask hard questions, Eli seeks to discover how an organization incubated in the religious heat and light of 1920s camp meeting revivalism took a dramatic turn into darkness. Are the sins and shadows of the past really past at all? The answers may cut closer to heart and home than Eli Scudder is ready to accept.