Regret the Dark Hour

When Nole Darlen kills his father--the man who has built the largest house anyone in these East Tennessee hills has ever seen--the single resounding gunshot sets up a dark patchwork of memory and expectation that gathers-up townspeople, hill-folks, lovers and outlaws. Here is a tangled tale involving the dead man's wife, neighbor Burlton Hobbes, desperado Jem Craishot, and a grizzled muskrat-trapper named Hogeye.

Central to the story is a pistol that Nole Darlen has taken from a card game ...