Secrets, mystery, and hidden adventure are all part of the Pine Barrens and its literature. The Pine Barrens Mystery (1937), one of a dozen mysteries written by Augusta Huiell Seaman, is centered on a deserted house in the barrens. Henry Charlton Beck has a South Jersey priest as his main character in Death by Clue (1933). Secret lovers find a hiding place and trouble in the Pine Barrens in Harris Dulany’s One Kiss Led to Another (1994). A sixteen-year-old girl, who has recently moved to the Pine Barrens, unravels a mystery and undergoes a test of faith in Gloria Repp’s Night Flight (1991). Even Joyce Carol Oates, writing as Rosamond Smith, has spun a tale of mystery in The Barrens (2002). The Pine Barrens provide a perfect locale for seclusion, obscurity, and the introduction of the unknown. Do you dare?
Seaman, Augusta Huiell. The Pine Barrens Mystery. Garden City: Doubleday, Doran & Co., 1937.
Beck, Henry Charlton. Death by Clue. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1933.
Dulany, Harris. One Kiss Led to Another. New York: Harper Collins, 1994.
Repp, Gloria. Night Flight. Greenville, S.C.: Bob Jones U Press, 1991.
Oates, Joyce Carol, writing as Rosamond Smith. The Barrens. New York: Carol and Graf, 2002.