title: Murders in Muddy Bottoms
author: Haycraft, Jim
description: Muddy Bottoms is a small, unincorporated mountain village whose residents are living thirty years in the past. With limited modern conveniences; telephone, electricity, etc., available to the few with money, the inhabitants live within the limits of their own legal code. When Shanahan Gordain comes down out of the mountains on a supply run and comes to the rescue of Alison MacDouga, killing Wyland Ponder in the process. Taken before the council, Shanahan is banished from the village until such time as he and the surviving Ponders settle their differences … one way or the other. Unknown to Shanahan, Alison escapes, gets lost, and is rescued by a mountain hermit, Shadrack P. Jones. The two mountaineers take Alison and her daughter, Jenny, under their wings and move deeper into the mountains to avoid retribution by the Ponders.  Biast and Nathair Ponder, however, are determined to have their revenge and the pursuit continues.  Murders and attempted murders mount as a romance develops between Shanahan and Alison but who will come to their rescue … friends living in Muddy Bottoms, strangers from Parkersburg or their own efforts?