Chasing Profit and Pleasure: (Adventures of a Southern Boyhood, Volume 5)

Take a stormy excursion with William E. Dunstan through Chasing Profit and Pleasure, the fifth book of his superb boyhood adventure series centering on his hometown of Elizabeth City, North Carolina. Join William as he enters the eighth grade, in 1953, and begins unraveling the dusty secrets of the famous Nell Cropsey tragedy erupting at the turn of the twentieth century. Nell and her beau, Jim Wilcox, drift into spats in the fall of 1901. Nell disappears from her waterside home in November and reappears as a corpse floating in the river the following month, reducing Elizabeth to hysteria. Convicted of murder, Jim Wilcox faces life behind bars, but does the wrong person rot in prison? As an eighth grader, William begins unveiling a sinister tale. The Nell Cropsey tragedy counts as one of the many spellbinding true stories dotting these pages. During this time frame William condemns a sensational witch hunt, invents a haunting Night Kite, becomes trapped in a mazelike swamp, tests romantic waters, presents a beekeeping demonstration, helps write and stage a bizarre but historically accurate ancient Roman funeral, works alongside the grandfather of a future internationally famous whistleblower, investigates a terrifying light, and encounters the goddess of the dirty boogie.