ADVENTURE / THRILLER. Set along the Findhorn River in mountainous Appalachia, this novel is a prequel to Davis' The Sixth William. The valley's residents include third-generation settlers and a mysterious clan of mixed ancestry who are called Melungeons. Geoff Rydges was born in the Australian Outback to an itinerant sheepherder and an Aborigine woman who left them shortly after the boy's birth. St. James Rydges, Geoff's father, is a petty criminal and flees to America with his young son. After a wandering voyage across the Atlantic, they land in Virginia, and travel westward, eventually settling in rural Shoals, Tennessee. Here in this rugged country, his father deserts him, and Geoff begins his journey into manhood under the tutelage of a Melungeon teacher and her aging, blind husband. Cocooned within the intertwinement of mystery, violence and racial tension is a compelling story of love.