James Aura

The Cumberland Killers James Aura

A reporter sets out to track down his friend's killer only to discover murder of another kind in the Appalachian mountains. Russell Ray Teague's bad day takes a turn for the worse when he discovers his friend, a TV news photographer, has been murdered. Clues lead to the Cumberland Mountains of eastern Kentucky where increasing numbers of residents report bad drinking water from their wells. Russell recruits his childhood friend, mechanical genius Tom Gabbert as they make their way into a region not always friendly to strangers. When another dead body turns up, Russell realizes they are searching for a needle in a haystack. But the haystack is the size of a mountain range, and the puzzle soon takes on mountainous proportions. Fans of Ron Rash, Ivan Doig, Craig Johnson, and Elmore Leonard, will likely enjoy this historical mystery, set in 1985.