An eighteen year old girl from the Tennessee hills, Frankie Silver was hung in 1832 for the killing of her husband, whose total body parts were never found. In the 1970Ęs in that same part of the country, Fate Harkryder is convicted of the heinous murders of a young couple. Two decades alter, he is to be electrocuted for his.

Twenty years ago, Spencer Arrowood, a young gung-ho law enforcement official, was positive that he arrested the right person for the murders. His then boss, Sheriff Nelson Miller, takes him to the Silver grave and confesses that there are two cases that he has had some doubts about:Silver and Harkryder. After recently being shot, Spencer wonders if he looked at the Harkryder investigation through a myopic lens. He begins to investigate both the Silver and Harkryder cases to insure that an innocent man is not being sent to death.

Appalachia is impervious to human time as it virtually ignores the mortal presence in its backyard. The timelessness of the region and the seemingly repetition of human events a century apart add up to a melancholy, haunting, but beautifully lyrical masterpiece from Sharyn McCrumb. THE BALLAD OF FRANKIE SILVER can be read on two levels. It is a brilliant mystery (actually two) and it is a fabulous philosophical work of art. The book is so well written, readers will subconsiously find themselves reconsidering how they look at the flow of time. Instead of just short term and linear as our existence seems to be, Ms. McCrumb eloquently argues, in her ingeniously blended pair of who-done-its, that time is vast and non-linear. This novel will pass the test of time and be considered a classic in years to come.