In the North Carolina of Jeffery Deaver's novel The Empty Chair, the presence of Yankee criminologist Lincoln Rhyme and New York Police Department (NYPD) cop Amelia Sachs reminds everyone who lost the Civil War. The Tar Heel State is a different world, particularly Tanner's Corner, the community where the crimes are taking place. The Paquenoke River, or Paquo, marks the split between this community and the rest of the country. Lucy Kerr, a local deputy, says, "Normal rules don't apply to anybody north of the Paquo. Us or them. You can see yourself shooting before you read anybody their rights and that'd be perfectly all right." Crossing the Paquo leads one into a world where the rules of federal regulators and criminalists from New York with sophisticated ideas do not apply. It is a world outside the law, populated by moonshiners and swamp dwellers, and governed...