In The Forest of The Night, the winner of the West Virginia Writer's Statewide Competition in 2000, is a fine legal thriller with expertly written courtroom scenes. But, it is much more than that. This book is a literary novel in the best sense and it does what only fiction can do and what only the very best fiction actually does. It goes behind the scenes of the story, revealing the motives and backstorys that are hidden beneath every human action. It goes deeper still: beneath human motive and intention and into those things some call accidental—the mysteries and wonders that frame the stage on which we live and move and have our being. It is very ambitious: more Faulkner than Grisham; more Cormac McCarthy than Scott Turow. It is quite intentionally a poem, evoking place, character, moral and mystery.