Books by Oscar Patton

What does the second coming of the Klan portend for Satilla County? Is it one more sign evil is winning? Setting out to find answers, a northern-born young journalist experiences life in the deep South, the struggle to survive for whites and blacks. Her search turns personal and horrific when her best friend disappears.

With best friend Eve at her side, aspiring young journalist Rachel Mellon comes "home" to Satilla County to write the lives of southern women. She collides head-on with the Circle of Brothers, a gang of good old boys who control the illegal liquor business. They claim to stand for God, country, and family values, but Rachel sees them for what they are, a murderous crime syndicate, and she takes them on. Armed only with words and right, can she triumph or even survive in this classic battle of good versus evil? Set between the demise of the old Klan and the birth of the new in the early twentieth-century South, this is a story about bootleg whiskey, women''s rights, and changing times. It is also a story about the possibility of love and the miracle of redemption.

Young professor Oliver Hardin settles in at Georgia Southeastern College, happy to be back home in Satilla County: "Cock-a-doodle-do. This rooster has come home to roost. Bring your mugs, boys. The keg is iced down. The pork is on the pit. And the chicks are on the way." Then, in the year he expects to become a tenured professor, storm clouds gather. Discord among the English faculty, a developing romance with a student, the prospect of being fired, a night in jail, a cock fight that goes wrong, and the loss of a close friend cause Oliver to see Satilla County in a new light and to re-define what "home" means. The third of Oscar Patton's southern novels, A Place to Call Home is a comic tale with tragic elements.

Narrated in real time by characters in the drama, Riding the Fantastics is about the death and the life of Boy Man Hardin, last King of the Crackers in south Georgia's old herding culture. This is the second of Oscar Patton's Satilla County novels and is both a murder mystery and a story of love, courage, and the triumph of the human spirit. Multiple twists and turns take the reader on a romp through a murder investigation, a revenge plot, and revelations about character and paternity. Who was the legendary Boy Man Hardin--cowboy, lover, devoted friend, formidable adversary? Who were these people, these Georgia Crackers?

Love, hate, ambition, greed, lasciviousness-- human nature is laid bare in this story about the fall of the grandest house in Hebron,Georgia. Following the sudden death on the same night of her infant son and her rich and powerful husband, Ada McCallum,too young and too beautiful, must assume control of a vast empire and make her way in a world of men at war, at home and abroad. Strong willed Ada, a twentieth-century Scarlett O'Hara, succeeds in business and in love, but her behavior can be reckless and her choices unwise. Local newspaper editor and McCallum family friend Carl Goodman narrates Ada's life and reveals dark secrets. He also chronicles race relations, ghost sightings, and happenings in and around Sailla County.