Book excerpt: The Sheriff of Frozen's Murder Cases is the second volume in The Cumberland Mountain Trilogy. Sheriff Jake Herald's career was characterized by violence, intemperate outbursts against "Outsiders" (non-Mountaineers), high-handed and perhaps illegal campaign tactics, flights of fancy wherein he extols the beauties of the mountains and the virtues of its inhabitants, incarceration and intimidation of coal camp managers, police and owners, and, some say, inveterate womanizing. He did, however, quite remarkably, find the time to solve the occasional murder case. In this volume, Jake considers running for High Sheriff while being assailed by a series of difficulties, some of them quite bizarre. Violence from a near war in West Virginia between union miners and coal company "detectives" threatens to spill over into Chinoe County, Kentucky. Two bodies are found on the same stretch of railroad track. "Italian Bank Robbers" strike a nearby town, a young school teacher is stalked, and automobiles come to Chinoe with the introduction of a yellow Duesenberg and a Bluebird Overland. The series of murder cases that Jake Herald faces, and the methods he employs, build suspense and create the dramatic tension that propels the novel to its climax, and to an unforgettable resolution that promises a love interest readers are sure to look forward to in the final novel of the Cumberland Mountain Trilogy. Keywords: Romance, Action, History, War, Kentucky, Herald, Fiction, Iron Fist, Mystery, Veteran