Oct 7, 2026 · 47 min · 12 segments
Welcome to The Lost Shelf! - the podcast where we invite authors to rescue a neglected work of literature from obscurity. In Episode 3, Art O'Connor and Megan Nolan discuss Davis Grubb's 1953…
Megan NolanGuest
So the book, uh, I can't remember the year, but it was in the middle of the '50s.
And it's, so it, uh, it was inspired by a real-life criminal, um, called, I believe, Powell is the surname here, and Powers was the real-life-
So the real-life situation was that there was a kind of, they called him a lonely hearts killer.
... and they were widows, and he murdered two of them and three children, just, like, taking their savings, basically.
So then this book is a, you know, completely fictionalized, but inspired by that.
So it's Depression Era in West Virginia, and a father of two children has committed a bank robbery and killed two people during it.
Has this stash of $10,000 that he doesn't tell anybody where it is, including when he's going to his death, except for that his two children know.
So he's in the prison cell with him, and he's kinda needling him and trying to get the info out of him about where the money is.
Doesn't succeed, but then he goes to pursue, once, once that father is dead, has been h- he's executed, the preacher goes and pursues his wife and the two children to, you know, to get the money, but m- marries her, and that's his way into the family, and then it just becomes this very dread, suffused-
... kinda Southern Gothic, uh, predatory hunt for the, for the money and the children.
So the book, uh, I can't remember the year, but it was in the middle of the '50s.
And it's, so it, uh, it was inspired by a real-life criminal, um, called, I believe, Powell is the surname here, and Powers was the real-life-
So the real-life situation was that there was a kind of, they called him a lonely hearts killer.
... and they were widows, and he murdered two of them and three children, just, like, taking their savings, basically.
So then this book is a, you know, completely fictionalized, but inspired by that.
So it's Depression Era in West Virginia, and a father of two children has committed a bank robbery and killed two people during it.
Has this stash of $10,000 that he doesn't tell anybody where it is, including when he's going to his death, except for that his two children know.
So he's in the prison cell with him, and he's kinda needling him and trying to get the info out of him about where the money is.
Doesn't succeed, but then he goes to pursue, once, once that father is dead, has been h- he's executed, the preacher goes and pursues his wife and the two children to, you know, to get the money, but m- marries her, and that's his way into the family, and then it just becomes this very dread, suffused-
... kinda Southern Gothic, uh, predatory hunt for the, for the money and the children.
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