Cyndi J. (cyndij) reviewed on 6/28/2008 + 1032 more book reviews

Dr. Fever Devilin, a folklore specialist, has left his university position to go back home: the Appalachian mountains of Georgia. He doesn't even make it in the door before finding a corpse on the front porch of his cabin - a corpse that looks disturbingly like him. His old friends seem to know a lot more about what's going on than he does which very much disturbs Devilin, who is now feeling like an outsider. But with the help of a sheriff's deputy (one of the old friends) and a university colleague, he uncovers plenty of old secrets including some shockers about himself.
The beginning cracked me up. Here's Devilin and his friend Skidmore, the deputy, standing there staring at the corpse when there's a gunshot and one of the windows shatters. Do they yelp and hit the ground? Do they scramble for cover? No, they make a couple comments in loud voices about the shooter, and wander over behind the squad car. Because, as Devilin explains, the folks around there are good enough shots that if anyone wanted to kill them, they'd be dead already, so no point in getting upset.
Plenty of interesting characters in this story, even if a few of them seem like Deliverance stereotypes. I especially liked the woodworker and Skidmore. Very good sense of place in this novel, you get a good feel for the mountains and the community. I had a harder time getting into Devilin's head but I suspect that is deliberate on the part of the author, he is supposed to be somewhat of a closed book. Looks like there are a few more in this series, but this one stands alone quite nicely.

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