Midnight Cry

Lesa Carnes Shaul has carved out a piece of northeast Alabama history and, simply stated, owns the brutal story of the Kilpatricks of Sand Mountain. The research is impeccable, the writing crisp, and the tale both tragic and fascinating—a love story and a slaughter. With three men dead and sixteen-year-old James Kilpatrick holding a .30-caliber carbine, Shaul deftly takes readers on a journey through the justice system of early 1950s Alabama. -- Robin Yokum * author of The Sacrifice of Lester Yates * Having grown up in the shadow of Sand Mountain, I remember stories that 'flatlanders' in the small industrial town of Anniston told about 'those hillbillies' who lived just north of us. The stories terrified me as a child, were dismissed when I became an historian writing about poor whites, and reappeared in nightmares when I read Shaul's Midnight Cry. Although that is not the ONLY TRUTH about isolated mountain people, it is certainly one terrifying true story. -- Wayne Flynt * author of Afternoons with Harper Lee * Engaging and enlightening—a historical page-turner. Shaul skillfully blends true crime, a courtroom procedural, and narrative history to give insight into the lives and struggles of rural Alabamians in a rapidly modernizing world. -- Matthew L. Downs * author of Transforming the South: Federal Development in the Tennessee Valley, 1915–1960 *