"DePoy describes the Georgia Appalachians with affection and understanding, with the subtle rhythms of hill-country speech in warm counterpoint. He has created an attractive new detective whose native intelligence combines with the knowledge to solve this complicated mystery."

--THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS ON THE DEVIL’S HEARTH

FEVER DEVILIN WAS BORN AND RAISED among the hill-country folk of the Appalachians. However, he left it behind when he headed for college, intending to never--or rarely--return. Now, many years later, Fever, a professor and noted folklorist, has decided to flee academia and return to the family home and small town he thought he’dleft behind forever.

But the seemingly quiet life and ways of the Blue Mountain region are deceptive. While out on a trip collecting folktales and lore, Fever spots an apparition at a railroad crossing. For Fever, such visions are traditionally omens of evil, and when he returns home he finds that his fears are accurate: his friend Lucinda’s two nieces have been killed in a suspicious accident on the same railroad tracks. In an effort to console Lucinda, Fever promises to investigate the girls’ deaths.

His promise leads him into a direct conflict with his oldest friend, Sheriff Skidmore Needle, and through a maze of train-hopping drifters, old ghost stories, and the wild ravings of an itinerant preacher. Only Fever can untangle them all to uncover the truth behind the tales that are told and the visions that are seen before another innocent person falls victim.