Phillip DePoy

This is the third entry in DePoy's Fever Devilin series. Fever is an academician, a folklorist who has recently returned to his roots in Appalachian Georgia, partly to undertake a story/song collecting project, and partly for personal reasons he doesn't fully grasp himself. These stories always include a bit of maaaaybe supernatural stuff, and hints of the folk mythology of rural, by which I mean backwoods rural, snake-handling, Georgia. In this instance, two beautiful, beloved, lively young girls are killed when their car is inexplicably struck by a train one night. Their aunt, Fever's lady friend Lucinda, does not believe it was a simple accident. WHY did the car stop on the tracks? WHY didn't they just get out when it seems there was plenty of time for them to do so? WHY was the car's engine not running when it was struck by the train? She asks Fever to help, putting him at odds with his old friend, Skidmore Needle, who is now uncomfortably ensconced as Sheriff. Storytelling just doesn't get any better than this; there's mystery, there's myth, there's suspense, there's eeriness, there's romance. I loved it...maybe DePoy's best outing yet.… (meer)

Fever is implored by his best friend's wife, Girlinda, to find her brother Able and his lady love, Truevine Deveroe (sister of the wild boys we met in the first Fever Devilin outing), who have both gone missing. There's a dead body in a gully, which turns out to be a man who carried a torch for Truvy, which may have sparked an argument that led to Able whacking him so hard he fell down and died. But why is he naked? And what to do with his body, since he was the town's only mortician? Oh, and who are all those shadows creeping around the cemetery---are they living or dead? Will Andrews ever get enough to eat? Another great escape read from the witty DePoy.… (meer)

The first of DePoy's Fever Devilin mysteries. Fever Devilin (THREE syllables, please-- don't drop that first "i" like whoever designed the cover of my MMPB did) comes back to the home he grew up in, in Blue Mountain, Georgia, when his job in the folklore department of an Atlanta college gets eliminated. He finds his old friend, Deputy Sheriff Skidmore Needle on his front porch, standing watch over a dead body which turns out to be Fever's previously unknown (to him) half brother. Somebody shoots at them from the woods (might just be the Deveroe boys raisin' hell...) The girl he used to love, now a grown widow woman, comes by to see how he's doing. And then things get complicated. Eventually, the sweet folks of Blue Mountain boot Fever's butt enough to make him realize that you can too come home again, even if you are a mess. The setting -- a mountain town in Appalachia-- is irresistible for me; the characters are well-drawn and ring true to a reader who came from a similar, if slightly less isolated, place; the story unfolds well, incorporating plenty of authentic folkways and traditions. But I think DePoy was still finding his style with this one. There's just a bit too much stating of the obvious, repetition, and explaining what people's facial expressions were upon seeing or learning something unexpected. Having introduced myself to DePoy with his later Foggy Moskowitz series, and having loved it, I know he got over all that. So I plunged right in to the second Fever outing. I'm looking forward to a long happy relationship with this guy.… (meer)