In the Day of Trouble

Magruder fictionalizes a fascinating real-life murder in his impressive debut. One morning in 1910, Susan Mummey warned her husband not to go to work at DuPont Mill in Western Pennsylvania after dreaming he was in danger. He ignored her, went to work, and died in an explosion, earning Susan the nickname the “Witch of Ringtown Valley.” Two decades later, Union Township resident Albert Shinsky breaks into 63-year-old Susan’s home and shoots her while she’s sleeping. Detective Louis Buono and DA LeRoy Enterline learn that Shinsky had fallen on hard times and blamed Susan, believing she placed a hex on him. While the case appears open-and-shut, the Schuylkill County prison warden takes note of Shinskey’s erratic behavior, insisting he undergo a psychiatric evaluation that finds him insane and unable to stand trial. Magruder supplements his evocative prose (Union Township is “nestled, or imprisoned, in the foothills of a rugged and majestic mountain range”) with news clippings that capture the paranoid tenor of Pennsylvania’s so-called “Hex Belt.” Readers will thrill to this well-paced resurrection of a forgotten crime story. (Self-published)