NO VILLAINS, NO HEROES
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Man is the only creature with foreknowledge of his own doom. This awareness instills a need to leave something behind, to explain himself to those who follow; and he becomes a teller of tales. How he plays his short hour on the stage, nobly or meanly, is a story; and he lives surrounded by the tales of others as well as his own. That’s all we humans are in the end, a collection of stories; which confer a kind of immortality when we pass them on to our children and grandchildren. Now the time has come for me to tell the untold chapter of my story, my role in the infamous Hillsville Massacre case. It’s the only item of remaining business before I shuffle off this mortal coil. That won't be long, if I read the faces of the doctors correctly. I’m 89 years old and my mainspring is running down. But we all go the same way home; there’s no point in fretting about it. At least I can go without regrets if I complete the circle of my life by sharing this amazing tale.
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About the Book
NO VILLAINS, NO HEROES is a moving historical novel of the 1912 “Hillsville Massacre,” the most shocking crime in the state of Virginia, and a cautionary tale for our own time about the true meaning of law and justice.
No Villains, No Heroes dramatizes a shocking episode in Virginia history. In March 1912 Floyd Allen was convicted of assault in Carroll County, in Virginia’s Blue Ridge. When he announced, “Gentlemen, I ain’t a-goin,” a gun battle erupted in the crowded courtroom between law officers and the Allen clan. Five people were killed; seven wounded. Floyd and his young son Claude were executed a year later. Other Allens served long prison sentences. But who were the villains? Who were the heroes? In this moving historical novel, the narrator, a detective called in to hunt down the fugitives, grapples with these perplexing questions and the true meaning of law and justice.
“This exciting novel tells the story of a once-famous but now largely forgotten episode in Virginia history, the ‘Hillsville Massacre’ of March 1912, recalled in vivid detail by Carter Hayne, a private lawman on the scene. His experience is so transforming that it turns him into a crusading lawyer who dedicates his life to advancing criminal justice. It effortlessly recreates an age and place, pre-modern America 100 years ago in the Blue Ridge Mountains, the setting for an event so complex and weighty, even primal, that it is, as Hayne says, “just like a Greek tragedy.”
Kirkpatrick Sale, author of 12 books, including The Fire of His Genius: Robert Fulton and the American Dream.
About the Author
Thomas Moore is the author of three books, including THE HUNT FOR CONFEDERATE GOLD, an historical mystery and contemporary thriller praised by WRITER’S DIGEST for its characters and plot. A graduate of The Citadel and Georgetown University, he was a leading national security expert in Washington, DC before becoming a story-teller.