PIKE COUNTY, Mo. — A new book offers a tantalizing glimpse of Pike County, Missouri and its national reach.

Brent Engel of Louisiana is publishing They Call Us Pikers. The 224-page book features 56 stories of local history, plus 12 pages of clippings about Pike County from newspapers around the nation.

It costs $40 and is set for release on Wednesday, Dec. 11.

Engel says the book features a little bit of something for everyone while highlighting people and events that have helped shape Pike County within and beyond its borders.

There are stories about Bowling Green politician Champ Clark, construction of the Louisiana bridge and the Whiskey Ring federal tax fraud case. Others introduce readers to a man who survived a scalping, a trailblazing woman lawyer and a slave who tried a new tactic in seeking his freedom. A chapter on lynchings humanizes the victims of an inhumane act, and another highlights the last contemplative words of a convicted killer.

Of course, plenty of lighter moments can be found. There’s the man who swore an ancient tribe of pygmies lived outside Bowling Green, the Frankford women who more than met an ill-advised male challenge and a drunken Louisiana rendezvous that may have just saved Missouri.

More information about buying a book is available by calling Engel at 573-754-2022.