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Steal Away, my 70,000-wd. Christian/magical realism novel, takes place in early nineteenth century Middle Georgia when teaching slaves to read the Bible was against the law. Jacob Wells, a twenty-year-old slave, knows how to read and wants to free the souls of his people, even if their bodies are trapped in chattel bondage.The novel opens with the death of his mentor, Mr. Alan Cudjoe, a free black, murdered for doing what Jacob aspires to. Beside Sarah, his sweetheart, his only friend is Legs, a comedic dwarf born with his feet attached to his torso. Jacob plants scriptures and warrior angels spring up who help Jacob in his battle.When he's eventually caught teaching, Jacob's master, the benevolent and literary Mr. Gus McBride, refuses to flog him, but his fellow planters force Mr. Gus to do it. After his recovery from the beating, disenchanted and depressed, Jacob meets an alluring white girl and succumbs to lust, betraying Sarah. With time, he realizes how wicked he's become and enters into a season of penitence. He starves himself.Dying from hunger and haunted by hellish visions, he's rescued by a she-goat whose milk-bursting udder saves his life. In the shop where he works, seven Haitian warriors appear, soliciting Jacob's help to murder the landowners. He and Sarah write a note to Mr. Gus warning him of the Haitian plan, but it's intercepted by Mrs. McBride, who's convinced Jacob has an evil spirit and believes he wants to kill Mr. Gus. The Haitians butcher only one family. The sheriff catches and locks the murderers in a barn and burns them alive inside, but the landowners learn the Haitians met with Jacob before the attack and accuse him of collusion. The sheriff arrests him.Legs and Sarah and Mr. Gus try to stop the mob at the jailhouse, but they're over-powered and Jacob is hung. A warrior angel saves his spirit. After Jacob's death, Mr. Gus erects The Jacob Wells School for slaves. Sarah will be its first teacher and Mr. Gus will offer instruction in poetry, his first love.

Elderly residents of Hakkas Falls, a small town in northern Wisconsin, are being murdered in cruel and vicious attacks in their own homes. All of the victims are both well known and well liked in the community, and the two-man police force is facing a huge challenge to establish a potential motivation for the killings.At each murder scene, the killer leaves a note, apparently intended as a clue, but police and FBI behavioral analysis profilers can glean nothing from the notes that serves to move the case forward … the messages serve only to link the cases together and establish that a serial killer is at work in Hakkas Falls. Worse, absolutely no forensics evidence can be found at any of the murder scenes to offer authorities even a scintilla of investigatory value.A small group of long-time residents, members of the Little Old Ladies (LOL) Club, discuss the murders during their daily get-togethers and eventually collaborate with law enforcement authorities to offer theories and suggest possible directions in which the police investigation might go.An arrest is finally made … but the killings continue and in fact escalate. Police come to believe that more than one killer could be at work.A stash of money, a discovery about the notes left at each scene, and facts related to a long-ago event eventually intersect to point investigators toward another potential killer.Police set a trap into which the killer unwittingly wanders, and the true killer is finally apprehended, the identity of the murderer coming as a shock to both police and the community's public. This tale includes a large cast of interesting characters and takes many unique twists and unexpected turns, making this a truly thrilling tale of suspense and intrigue.