Off for the sweet hereafter

T. R. Pearson, author of last year's A Short History of a Small Place , again presents an intimate view of small-town North Carolina, but Neely is no Mayberry, and its residents remind one more of a Southern verison of The Beans of Egypt, Maine than of Andy Griffith. The Neely-ites are a motley crew, known by lineage and physical attributes ("the bald Jeeter"). Raeford Benton Lynch, of the Chickenhouse Lynches, never has done a great deal with himself, until he hires on with a grave-moving crew and meets hot-blooded Jane Elizabeth Firesheets, whose charms lead him to a life of crime. Pearson has a dense, folksy style all his own, and although his storyline sometimes gets muddled and his prose busy, his originality and unerring sense of place make this book a winner. --Ann H. Fisher, Library Journal.