“Reminiscent of both To Kill a Mockingbird and Anatomy of a Murder…absorbing!” – New York Times

“This book is that rarity, both a ‘good read’ and a fine novel…a real mystery in the best and truest sense.” – New York Times Book Review

A Stranger in the Kingdom

Publisher: Doubleday, 1989; paperback edition, Mariner Books, 2002

Synopsis

Howard Frank Mosher has earned both critical acclaim and a wide readership for his vivid portraits of northern New England residents in fictional Kingdom County, Vermont. A Stranger in the Kingdom tells the unforgettable story of a brutal murder in a small town and the devastating events that follow. The town’s new preacher, a black man, finds himself on trial more for who he is than for what he might have done in this powerful drama of passion, prejudice, and innocence suddenly lost…and perhaps found again.

Reviews

"Magnificent--compelling--a dark drama--told with such dexterity--shot through with such light and humor, with such marvelous assemblage of major and minor figures--and such intimate understanding of community mores and history, that there is no danger of this being a one-season best seller." - The Vermont Sunday Magazine

Winner of the New England Book Award

“Exciting and memorable…Howard Frank Mosher has made a small-town story into a universal one…and has carried it along with a rolling wave of suspense.” – Wallace Stegner