Upstate South Carolina is a scenic region of business centers, farms and textile towns. But it has a dark side. In 1924, a local resident was convicted for poisoning a neighbor in a case that went to the state supreme court. One resident aided a prisoner in a daring outbreak in the name of love. Fairfield County had its own version of witch trials. Crime writer Cathy Pickens brings a novelist's eye to the Upstate's real crime stories and the international headlines and the little-known tales that define the sinister—and quirky—side of her home state.