Coal Hill

It's early in the summer of nine-teen eighteen, and the world is at a historical crossroad. The United States has joined it's allies in a war that's ravaging Europe, and an epidemic of Spanish flu is sweeping the world. In a shabby tenement in Philadelphia the life of eleven year old Thomas, "Poke" Malone is changed forever when his family is struck down by the dread disease and his only remaining close relative, his mother's brother Eugene, is leaving for France with the Army, forcing young Poke to set off for a small town in West Virginia to stay with relatives he's never met. His efforts to make a new life in the rural coal-mining community get complicated when young girls begin to disappear from the area. A young police detective is called in on his first big case, and the town must come together to combat the evil that threatens Coal Hill. D. J. Decker's debut novel evokes a cast of memorable characters and a true sense of time and place that will keep you turning pages.