Usually the Book Buzz posts are a round-up of new-ish books in the library, but today we’re doing something a little different!
A couple of weeks ago, Jason Harmon reached out to our library system to let us know he would be appearing on the new Ozarks-themed podcast Ozarkian Folk Chronicles.
Back in 2003, he worked with David McElyea on his memoir When Money Grew on Trees: The True Tale of a Marijuana Moonshiner and the Outlaw Sheriff of Madison County, Arkansas. Written under the pen name of David Mac, the book recounts how McElyea grew an illegal marijuana farm in Madison County in the 1980s and 1990s under the protection of the then-sheriff Ralph Baker. It recounts both McElyea’s and Baker’s rise and fall, and it is a perennial favorite with patrons in our library system.
You can of course check out When Money Grew on Trees at any time–though you might be in for a wait. Like I said, it has remained a popular read here, despite being over 20 years old.
And if you would like to listen to the podcast, there are 2 episodes devoted to McElyea and Baker, and you can listen to them in your browser. They are fascinating and well worth your time. There’s also discussion of Carroll County since Mac himself was arrested here back in the day.
The second instead centers on Sheriff Baker.
However, we have other books about local true crime, many of which have been featured on the blog over the years.
For books about Carroll County crime, our collection includes Sean Fitzgibbon’s striking nonfiction graphic novel What Follows Is True: Crescent Hotel on the dark history of the Crescent Hotel in Eureka and Dale Ross’s compelling A Voice for Ira, which recounts the suspicious circumstances surrounding Ira Gurley’s death in the 1930s. Nita Gould’s Remembering Ella chronicles a Boone County crime, though the suspect was held in Berryville’s jail back in the 1910s.
For books about crimes elsewhere in the Ozarks, Molly May’s intense Witnesses for the Lamb tells the story of a bizarre cult and murder-suicide hostage situation in the 1980s in Newton County. Brooks Blevins’s Ghost of the Ozarks: Murder and Memory in the Upland South travels back to the 1920s to detail a highly convoluted murder case in Baxter County. Shifting across the border to Missouri, Michael W. Cuneo’s Almost Midnight recounts the story of killer Darrell Mease.
We also have a roundup of Ozark and Arkansas true crime books in a post from last year.
What’s your favorite new-ish books? What books are you buzzing about for 2025? What’s your favorite local true crime book? Have you read any of these books? Tell us in the comments! As always, please follow this link to our online library catalog for more information on any of these items or to place them on hold.
Berryville Book Buzz 