Reviewed by Lynette Fowlston for Readers' Favorite

Witness at Hawks Nest is a Novel written about the actual happenings of the Hawks Nest Tunnel. In the 1930’s during the great depression there was little work to no work. Many men ,mostly colored were lured to West Virginia to work on the Hawks Nest Tunnel. They made twenty-five cents an hour. It was a dirty dusty job that brought death to many. The mountain was solid rock, pure silicon. Eventually the tunnel was finished and the new river flowed through it generating electricity for many, but at the cost of the lives of 800 men and possibly upwards of 1500 from acute silicosis.

Orville Ore who was hired as a deputy to control the men and make sure they worked recognized what was going on and at the risk of his own life began an investigation along with Armen, who lost her father to what the doctor called tunnelitis. The tunnel was almost complete when an autopsy proved that Union Carbide knew there was a problem and tried to cover it up.

Dwight Harshbarger has written a novel that is a fictional account of one of the worst disasters in our history. The true story may never have been know about if not for the courage of one man that stood up against the system and the corrupt practices of one of the biggest companies of that time. Harshbarger brings history to life. This is an excellent story and hard to put down.