Howard Eugene Alley

Historical Images
Paperback, 256 pages
ISBN: 0-914875-36-1
$16.00

Union Col. George Kirk clashed with Confederate Col. John Alley in the Cashiers Valley of Western North Carolina near the end of the Civil War. John’s great-grandson Howard merges family legend with historical fact in this speculative account of the skirmish and its aftermath, which led to Cornelia Norton’s mysterious disappearance. An epilogue provides a guide to the factual basis of the novel. Fans of Civil War history, murder mysteries, and romance novels alike will find this book immensely enjoyable.

"In Howard Alley’s Presumed Dead, an intricate murder mystery encloses a tender and romantic love story. Here is a tale firmly rooted in a special time and place that the author renders authentically and affectionately, never disregarding hardships and dangers. I enjoyed every scrap of it."
— Fred Chappell, author and North Carolina Poet Laureate

Howard Eugene Alley

Howard Eugene Alley was born in the Blue Ridge Mountain town of Walhalla, South Carolina, and is a product of the Depression-era, agricultural South. A true artist, Howard completed a large painting for a Western North Carolina courthouse when he was in his teens. He later created nose art for a World War II bomber. During the war he served as a naval aerial gunner in a torpedo bomber squadron.

Immediately following the war, he attended Western North Carolina’s Mars Hill Junior College and then graduated from the University of Georgia with a bachelor of fine arts degree. During his career as a design engineer and engineering artist, he worked for the Goodyear Aerospace and the Lockheed Aircraft companies.

Howard and his wife, Kathleen, have four grown children. They live in Roswell, Georgia, and built a log home in Whiteside Cove, North Carolina, on land where Presumed Dead took place. Alley has had several short stories published in national magazines, and this is his first novel.

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