Mean Moon Blues — John Osier

People in a backwoods Southern town are shocked when the body of a recently deceased banker, the richest and most despised man in the county, disappears from the local graveyard then is offered back to the grieving widow for a hefty ransom. The body snatchers, a hardscrabble family of moonshiners, are led by 'Sleepy' Dinmore, a man desperate to escape poverty and his sister Stella Jo, intent on buying an up-to-date artificial leg. The novel, alternately humorous, macabre and suspenseful reaches a climax with local lawmen out to shoot Sleepy on sight as he attempts to collect the ransom and help his family start a new life.