A Dark and Bloody Ground

An Edgar Awardwinning authors true crime account of a grisly string of killings in Kentuckyand 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. Ackers 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. Ackers alarm and security systems and made off with the fortune he had stashed away over his lifetime. The killerspart of a three-man, two-woman gang of the sort not seen since the Barkersstopped 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 Kentuckys 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 atmosphericand compellingpages. Kirkus Reviews OBrien creates a fascinating portrait of the mountain way of life and thought that forged the lives of these criminals. Library Journal