"In 1861 the Civil War reached the mountain South -- where the enemy was your neighbor, the victims were you friends, and the wrong army was whichever one you joined." Families split apart, war was an excuse for murder, and guerrillas fought old feuds.

In the latest of her "ballad series", McCrumb departs from her usual mystery format. Instead, she focuses on alternating stories of real historical characters with stories of people in the present attempting to connect with the past. A group of Civil War re-enactors are playing at war, and Sheriff Spencer Arrowood, a recurring character in McCrumb's book, learns, to his surprise, that an Arrowood was killed in a battle that occurred after the war officially ended, and that he was a Union soldier.

The historical story lines are fascinating, and led me to do more research on the people. Zebulon Vance was a self-made man, lawyer and Congressman. Though he argued against secession, when war came, he became a Confederate officer, later becoming the Confederate governor of North Carolina and was a strong voice for the people of Appalachia. After the war, he eventually became Governor again, and ended his career in the United States Senate.

The other story is even more interesting. McKesson (Keith) Blalock was a Union sympathizer, but in Confederate North Carolina he was likely to be conscripted into the army. He enlisted, planning to desert and join the federal forces. But he didn't reckon that his troop's movements would make that difficult. He also didn't reckon on his wife, Malinda, following him, disguised as a man. The two eventually concoct a scheme to be discharged, and return home but Blalock's sympathies were known, and they were in danger. In time, both fled to the mountains, spending the war as guerrillas. This story, told through Malinda's voice, tells a side of the war that isn't taught much, where neighbor killed neighbor and relative killed relative.

Meanwhile, in the present, the re-enactors have, unintentionally, conjured up ghosts, ghosts who have ridden before, and who are seen by the likes of Nora Bonesteel and Rattler, who have the Sight, and by those who are dying. The veil between past and present is rent.

McCrumb has a real feel for language, and for getting into the skin of her characters. Malinda, particularly, struck me as being deeply understood. A lesser writer might have been tempted to draw her as an anachronism, to make her a "modern" woman, which would be terribly wrong. McCrumb respects her. She's a woman of her time and place, and, though unusual for that time and place, she was not unique.

I zipped right through this book; it's not easy to put down. Though I admit to stopping now and again to do a bit of research into the characters and historical events McCrumb's writing about. That she led me to do that says a lot.

This is partially based on true events and characters with a dose of the supernatural. Its a good story and probably gets right how the atrocities of war never truely dissappear. ( )

Civil War in WNC - weaves together the real-life stories of Kieth & Melinda Blaylock, Zebulon Vance, Augustus Merimon, Colnel Thomas’ Cherokee, the Battle of Waynesville, and even the Enloe/Lincoln connection with the usual Ballad Novel characters of Nora Bonesteel, Rattler and sherriff Arrowood (sp?). ( )