A new novel of historical fiction by a former journalist follows an Eastern Kentucky sheriff’s investigation into the mysterious death of an African-American coal miner. Set in 1924, Dan Conti’s Pikeville, examines many of the issues of the time, including Prohibition, resentment of immigrant labor, the rise of the Ku Klux Klan, and efforts to unionize miners in the Appalachian coalfields.
Conti worked as a broadcast anchor, reporter and producer in Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky between 1978 and 2017. A graduate of Miami University (Ohio) and Bishop Fenwick High School (Middletown, Ohio), he’s a native of Pennsylvania. The author lives in Morehead.
As the story develops, Pikeville is undergoing rapid population growth, construction of new roads and rail lines, its first hospital and a luxury hotel. Sheriff Ben Laurel’s pursuit of justice is shaped by his family’s legacy, his experience in World War I, race relations in the military and the recovery from a global pandemic that killed 50 million people.
Although Pikeville is a work of fiction, the novel explores several aspects of its actual historical significance, such as the city’s role in the Civil War, the place where one of America’s first racially-integrated cemetaries was established, and a community in which the KKK chose to march and rally in July, 1924.
Pikeville is available at many local libraries. It’s also for sale at selected bookstores and online at Amazon, Barnes and Noble and other sites.
Pikeville is Conti’s second novel. His debut, Nittany Lion, was initially released in 2023 and was republished in 2024. It was greeted with critical acclaim, as URlink called it a “quiet triumph” and Kelly Johnson of Books to Life Marketing described it as “a powerful, intimate portrait of a family trying to hold itself together as the world around them fractures.”
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