In an unsettling and sometimes surprising look at murder and death in South Carolina, John Hammond Moore examines the acts of violence that South Carolinians perpetrated against one another from 1880 to 1920. Moore identifies three specific trends that emerged during the period--the demise of dueling, the rise and fall of lynching, and the proliferation of murder. As he examines specific incidents and larger trends, Moore questions why South Carolinians are so violent and why more stringent steps were not taken during those decades to curb the mayhem. His findings suggest that the answers to these questions are far from simple.