Category Archives: 1919

1919

James Hay, Jr. The Winning Clue. New York: Dodd, Mead, and Co., 1919.

Asheville is called Furmville in this novel, but readers will recognize the Asheville of the early twentieth century.  The city is a haven for tuberculosis patient from all along the eastern seaboard.  One of these patients, Miss Fulton, has been accompanied by her older sister, Mrs. Withers, a beautiful and fairly well-to-do woman.  As the novel opens, the younger woman finds her older sister dead in the living room of the bungalow they share. Mrs. Withers has been strangled and her jewels have been stolen.  Has she been murdered by a stranger or someone in her circle?  Police chief Greenleaf is aided in his investigations by an Atlanta detective who is recuperating in Furmville.  Their conversations move the investigation forward; those conversations also reveal the racial and social attitudes of the period.

Check this title’s availability in the UNC-Chapel Hill Library catalog.

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Filed under 1910-1919, 1919, Buncombe, Hay, James, Mountains, Mystery, Novels Set in Fictional Places

Ethel and James Dorrance. Flames of the Blue Ridge. New York: Macaulay Co., 1919.

Calvin Parker is a New York artist who likes his drink–too much. A friend, Spencer Pope, tries to save Parker by sending him to dry out in the North Carolina mountains. It’s a little unbelievable that Pope, an internal revenue agent, didn’t know of the moonshine culture in Dismal Gap. Parker’s landlady is a stalwart dry campaigner and she is thrilled to have one of Mr. Pope’s associates boarding with her. So there’s the set-up: Parker wants a drink, but all the local moonshiners thinks he’s a revenuer. Parker’s romantic interest in Vernaluska Metcalf, a moonshiner’s daughter, adds a complication to the plot. Of course, it’s Parker’s love for the fair Verney that saves him–and her bootlegger dad.

Check this title’s availability and access an online copy through the UNC-Chapel Hill Library catalog.

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Filed under 1910-1919, 1919, Dorrance, Ethel and James, Mountains, Novels to Read Online