"A Widow's Curse" by Phillip DePoy

This is the first time I have encountered a Fever Devilin mystery by Edgar Award winning author, Phillip DePoy.

The hero has an unusual profession-- he's a folklorist who has moved back to the mountains of northern Georgia after being let go from his university position in Atlanta. He's a bit of a curmudgeon, but he has a right to be somewhat bitter after being turned lose from academia. He makes an interesting character to use to explore the folkways and people of northern Georgia because he sees his friends and neighbors through an educated and sophisticated set of eyes that are also still filled with the childlike wonder of a boy who remembers growing up in a close-knit, isolated community.

I won't reveal much of the plot, but it involves treasures that Fever's great grandfather bought at auction in the 1940s and sold to help fund Fever's college education in the 1970s, a Welsh minted silver coin, a portrait of an aristocratic woman who lived in the area in the 1800s and came to a sad ending, and an artifact that holds a Cherokee curse.

DePoy uses very rich and descriptive language that just pops off the page with colorful images. It is so refreshing to read a mystery with such great literary qualities. You get that literary descriptiveness right from the first sentence: "What was left of the Barnsley estate rose into view at the hilltop. A full moon made the mansion skeletal, something from a grotesque animal more than remains of an antebellum home; a vision to match the story of its curse." Now, who wouldn't want to keep reading when introduced to a mystery that way?

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Liz Nichols