| A Dark and Bloody Ground: A True Story of Lust, Greed, and Murder in the Bluegrass State Contributor(s): O'Brien, Darcy (Author) |
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ISBN: 1504008200 ISBN-13: 9781504008204 Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media LLC OUR PRICE: $20.89 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: March 2018 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Law - True Crime | Murder - General - History | United States - State & Local - South (al,ar,fl,ga,ky,la,ms,nc,sc,tn,va,wv) |
| Dewey: 364.152 |
| Physical Information: 0.88" H x 5.25" W x 8" (0.99 lbs) 392 pages |
| Themes: - Cultural Region - South |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: An Edgar Award-winning author's true crime account of a grisly string of killings in Kentucky--and the shocking spectacle of greed that followed. Kentucky never deserved its Indian appellation "A Dark and Bloody Ground" more than when a small-town physician, seventy-seven-year-old Roscoe Acker, called in an emergency on a sweltering evening in August 1985. Acker's own life hung in the balance, but it was already too late for his college-age daughter, Tammy, savagely stabbed eleven times and pinned by a kitchen knife to her bedroom floor. Three men had breached Dr. Acker's alarm and security systems and made off with the fortune he had stashed away over his lifetime. The killers--part of a three-man, two-woman gang of the sort not seen since the Barkers--stopped counting the moldy bills when they reached $1.9 million. The cash came in handy soon after when they were caught and needed to lure Kentucky's most flamboyant lawyer, the celebrated and corrupt Lester Burns, into representing them. Full of colorful characters and desperate deeds, A Dark and Bloody Ground is a "first-rate" true crime chronicle from the author of Murder in Little Egypt (Kirkus Reviews). "An arresting look into the troubled psyches of these criminals and into the depressed Kentucky economy that became fertile territory for narcotics dealers, theft rings and bootleggers." --Publishers Weekly "The smell of wet, coal-laden earth, white lightning, and cocaine-driven sweat arises from these marvelously atmospheric--and compelling--pages." --Kirkus Reviews "O'Brien creates a fascinating portrait of the mountain way of life and thought that forged the lives of these criminals." --Library Journal |
Contributor Bio(s): O'Brien, Darcy: - Darcy O'Brien is the author of the novels A Way of Life, Like Any Other, which won the Ernest Hemingway Award for Best First Novel in 1978, and The Silver Spooner, as well as the nonfiction bestseller Two of a Kind: The Hillside Stranglers. He died in 1998. |