I generally like McCrumb’s tales of small town crime and relationships in the Tennessee mountains, but this one – the third one I’ve read – is more slow-going and less interesting than the first two. It concerns the four sons who come home to attend the death of their father and make him a coffin, the girl next door who can’t give up her family’s land, and the buried bodies (literally and figuratively) in both their families’ pasts. The suspenseful chase and climax feels a little contrived. But I do like her poetic language and the way she weaves the past with the present, so The Rosewood Casket is still a very pleasant read.