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Murder on the Birdsong
By
1832 Jack Whitaker
had nearly grown into adulthood, smart, sensitive and creative.
But Jack had a secret to keep. Something
was going on between Jack and hare-lipped Irish Jim Mullens, a longhunter from
Straight Creek, Kentucky. It
wasn’t until a last visit to Birdsong Hollow that the mystery was exposed—in
a way that shook to its core the southwest Virginia settlement of Clear Fork.
So
concerned were officials that the Commonwealth sent a legal representative, and
a man from Abingdon was summoned to appear in a Tazwell County court—all in
the hopes of convicting a local ne'er-do-well of the dastardly killing of a
highly regarded citizen of Clear Fork.
His barber shop was his realm, a kingdom that he totally controlled. He, Revolutionary War Veteran Kermit Carroll, was a pop-eyed despot, able to command absolute attention and immediate obedience. A shake of his head, a held-up hand or a piercing glare was his unspoken demand to stop whatever loud yawping was going on at the time; he didn’t condone or tolerate raucous talk, clamoring, squawking, joking around or complaining in his barber shop, and he could gorgonize any unruly child or loud-mouthed, bloviating adult with a single baleful glance. And after long periods of stone-dead silence, he treated his hushed customers to lengthy panegyrics that detailed his military exploits, and his greatly deserved awards and medals that, by him, brought no more than a minuscule government stipend on which to live.
About the Author:
J.
R. Hatmaker is the author of several titles
including Shadows Over Us, and The Coalwood Misfits.
He was born and raised in Coalwood, West Virginia.
Hatmaker/2003/Paperback
ISBN #0-9713342-9-3 $12.00 (U.S.)
