Prayers the devil answers : a novel / Sharyn McCrumb.

The year is 1936 and society provides no safety net for newly widowed Ellie Robbins, a woman in a small mountain town who suddenly has to support her family on her own. She's not trained to be a teacher or a nurse, the only respectable careers for a woman. So in order to care for her children, Ellie takes the only job available: that of her late husband, the sheriff. Ellie has long proven that she can handle herself, and her role as sheriff is largely symbolic. Yet the wariness of her male subordinates and the townspeople is palpable. Soon, as dark secrets come to light, Ellie is forced to grapple with the tenuous ties she shares with a convicted killer and the small-town superstitions that have plagued her for years. She must use the force of sheer will to carve out a place for herself in an uncertain future and to take control of her new position. When a condemned killer is sentenced to death for his crime, her opportunity to do so presents itself in a way she never expected. There's one task that only a sheriff can carry out: the execution of a convicted prisoner.