7 Edge-of-Your-Seat Suspense Novels Set in Appalachia
By Mary Kay McBrayer
People in rural towns tend to insulate. Usually it’s out of necessity, or in effort to maintain their remote (if not isolated) community, but occasionally it’s to protect the town from anyone outside of it. And rural mountain towns are more notorious for their tight-knit nature than most. If you want the thrill of reading about crime in Appalachia, check out this list of mysteries that tell their stories both from the outside and inside.
In a tiny town in North Carolina’s Blue Ridge, three little girls have gone missing. One of them was returned, but the others have never been seen again. A brother of one of the missing wants answers, and he hired Annie Gore. Annie left high school for the Air Force to escape her own Appalachian town, and while she’s not from his town, Annie understand mountain people. The case is old, but she can’t afford to turn down the work, no matter how much of her own past, folklore of witches and crows and a whole forgotten town, this case dredges up.
Format
Hardcover
This item is a preorder. Your payment method will be charged immediately, and the product is expected to ship on or around August 12, 2025. This date is subject to change due to shipping delays beyond our control.
In this Pulitzer-prize winning retelling of David Copperfield, we have the story of a boy born to a single teenage mother in a single-wide trailer told by himself. He endures foster care, child labor, athletic success, addiction, and his own invisibility in a popular culture that encourages abandoning rural people in favor of the urban.
Format
Hardcover
This item is a preorder. Your payment method will be charged immediately, and the product is expected to ship on or around October 18, 2022. This date is subject to change due to shipping delays beyond our control.
The brutal murder of two women hikers on the nearby Appalachian Trail shocks Sheila’s town. Sheila has been stashing away the money she’s earned by working shifts alongside her mother at the local asylum, but when her escape fund disappears, she and her younger sister—who is typically more focused on fighting imaginary zombies and creating tarot-like monster cars—find themselves in a cat-and-mouse game with a strange man who tried to trade a woman’s watch at the local convenience store. It’s an incredibly atmospheric narrative that blurs the line between what is real and what is supernatural.
Format
Trade Paperback
This item is a preorder. Your payment method will be charged immediately, and the product is expected to ship on or around July 16, 2024. This date is subject to change due to shipping delays beyond our control.
Jacob McNeely’s father runs an organized meth ring in and around Cashiers, North Carolina, and Jacob dropped out of high school to work for him on the promise his payday will come eventually. He’s cut off from his peers until he reunites with his first love, Maggie, who will soon be off to a bigger and better life. Jacob has resigned himself to play the hand he was dealt, but when a big misstep changes his course, he has to choose to ride it out with his father, or flee with Maggie.
Format
Trade Paperback
This item is a preorder. Your payment method will be charged immediately, and the product is expected to ship on or around February 2, 2016. This date is subject to change due to shipping delays beyond our control.
Abigail Lovett loves her job managing The Passage Inn in Cutter’s Pass, North Carolina. The upscale resort offers typical mountain activities, but it’s best known locally for its “vanishing trail,” the string of unsolved disappearances haunting the town. When journalist Landon West comes to investigate the cases, he himself disappears. Then, the town starts to close ranks, like rural communities do, and Abby is left on the outside, soon to understand just how little she knows her coworkers.
Format
Hardcover
This item is a preorder. Your payment method will be charged immediately, and the product is expected to ship on or around July 26, 2022. This date is subject to change due to shipping delays beyond our control.
Beverly is a Maine State Game Warden determined to find Valerie Gillis, the experienced hiker who went missing on the Appalachian trail 200 miles from her final destination. Lena is a seventy-six-year-old birdwatcher in Connecticut who finds herself an armchair detective on the same case, and as more pieces of the puzzle emerge, the search for Valerie intensifies. It seems like her disappearance wasn’t just a misstep. It was no accident at all.
Format
Hardcover
This item is a preorder. Your payment method will be charged immediately, and the product is expected to ship on or around April 1, 2025. This date is subject to change due to shipping delays beyond our control.
The Burroughses have been outlaws for generations. They’ve run moonshine, pot, and meth over six state lines into North Georgia. Clayton Burroughs is the sheriff of a neighboring town in effort to distance himself from the criminal side of his family, but when a federal agent at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms shows up, his agenda pits brother against brother, and Clayton has to choose between protecting his family and upholding the law.
Format
Trade Paperback
This item is a preorder. Your payment method will be charged immediately, and the product is expected to ship on or around June 21, 2016. This date is subject to change due to shipping delays beyond our control.
