Sharyn McCrumb is an internationally acclaimed New York Times bestselling author whose work has been honored with all five of the major awards in crime fiction (Edgar, Agatha, Anthony, Macavity, and Nero)-with two Best Appalachian Novel awards. She is the creator of the Ballad series, which began with If Ever I Return, Pretty Peggy-O; and her satirical mystery series featuring forensic anthropologist Elizabeth MacPherson. McCrumb lives in the Virginia Blue Ridge Mountains, less than a hundred miles from the Smoky Mountain valley where her ancestors settled in 1790.