A Widow's Curse — Phillip Depoy

Having grown up in the rural mountains of Appalachia, folklorist and academician Fever Devilin understands that secrets, especially among mountain folk, never die--they just get buried deeper. No truer than with his own strange heritage, now exposed with some family dirt when a newcomer shows up, tracing a rare silver medallion to Fever's magician father. The man is later found murdered in Fever's cabin.

Suspicion falls to Fever, and to clear his name, he uncovers a trail of legends, ghosts and a haunting portrait linked to the secret that drove his family away from the hills. Separating superstition from sordid fact, Fever revisits his difficult past, including a wayward, wanton mother, to untangle the twisted path of the medallion. Soon he's confronting a killer...and a curse that will haunt him in more ways than one.