February 2015 Featured Book
by Michael Rubin '72
The story is gripping, the writing is masterful . . .The Cottoncrest Curse is a page-turning thriller that will keep the reader engaged and thinking throughout . . . Rubin has struck ‘gold’ in his debut novel. - Chicago CBA Review
- Listen to a conversation about the book between Michael Rubin and Winston G. Decuir, Jr. ’95.
- Read an reviews and an excerpt.
- Learn more about the author.
- Visit Amherst Reads on Goodreads and start a discussion.
The bodies of an elderly colonel and his comely young wife are discovered on the staircase of their stately plantation home, their blood still dripping down the wooden balustrades. Within the sheltered walls of Cottoncrest, Augustine and Rebecca Chastaine have met their deaths under the same shroud of mystery that befell the former owner, who had committed suicide at the end of the Civil War. Locals whisper about the curse of Cottoncrest Plantation, an otherworldly force that has now taken three lives. But Sheriff Raifer Jackson knows that even a specter needs a mortal accomplice, and after investigating the crime scene, he concludes that the apparent murder/suicide is a double homicide, with local peddler Jake Gold as the prime suspect.
Michael H. Rubin's The Cottoncrest Curse takes readers on the bold journey of Jake's flight within an epic sweep of treachery and family rivalry ranging from the Civil War to the civil rights era, as the impact of the 1893 murders ripples through the twentieth century and violence besets the owners of Cottoncrest into the 1960s.