A NIGHT IN MOONBEAM COUNTY
by Alexander Cramer
A savory sequence of 11 supernatural tales-within-a-tale, told by former residents of a remote mountain settlement. Sitting at what they thought was a hobo fire, two lost travelers hear dim figures around them telling stories: of Thomas Jefferson Loudermilk, ``The Boy Who Stole the Moon''; of 16-year-old Emily Carlyle's sad/happy death; of Letitia Weller, a female Bluebeard; of Betsy Davison, who (in saving her father's farm from a card shark) becomes a ``Sorceress's Apprentice''; of blind Jack Tar, who learns to fiddle from the best (``Call Me Scratch''); and of young Hunter Lee, pulled back 50 years to the bloody battle of Shiloh. Aside from some obtrusive rough language, Cramer tells a seamless story, weaving together believable, independent characters, spine- chilling twists, and wonderfully wacky comedy (a coal miner helps fix the immense ``Wheels of the World'' with a pocket watch and the transmission from a '57 Chevy; a gifted banjo-picker is guided by the rotund ghost of Elvis when she steals Charon's boat to search for her dead husband on ``Another Shore''). Readers who found Judith Gorog's masterful On Meeting Witches At Wells (1991) to their taste will happily devour this inventive first book. (Fiction. 11-15)