The Baxter Series

Baxter residents fear upheaval when a regional tire plant announces it’s coming to Baxter. Rumor says mayor Charlie Kirby’s signature on the deal was influenced by an affair with the tire company’s corporate attorney – who dies suddenly after the agreement is finalized. Charlie, a pillar of the community and a father of seven, faces the court of public opinion and the biggest moral dilemma of his life. Meanwhile, newspaper editor Ellen Jones goes looking for a feature story, collides with the brick wall of the late attorney’s past – and is stalked by someone pursuing the same track!

Eighteen-year-old Angie Marks, tattooed and pierced, shows up in the small town of Baxter without a place to stay. When eccentric millionaire Patrick Bailey hires her to be his housekeeper, and then when Angie risks her own safety to help Mr. Bailey get his twin great-grandsons out of a rattlesnake’s strike zone, she finds herself fully at the center of the town’s curiosity. At Monty’s Diner they say she might be involved with Billy Joe Sawyer, using rattlers to intimidate the key witnesses in his upcoming trial. Is she? Or does Angie Marks have her own agenda?

Furious that his girlfriend chose to bring twin babies to term, Dennis walks out of Jennifer’s life. And now the Centers for Disease Control have quarantined Jennifer, along with 200 others who attended the reception for a missionary couple bearing a deadly virus. Is Jennifer at risk? Does Dennis even care what will happen to the twins, separated from their mother at birth? Fear takes hold in the town as violence erupts, and Baxter experiences an outbreak deadlier than any virus. Still, woven through the tale of violence and victims is another story: one of divine love and purpose.

One man’s hatred sets off a community crisis in a chilling page-turning read that is also startlingly inspirational. Textile magnate G. R. Logan lays off a thirty-year employee who dies weeks later, and the man’s son means to make Logan pay. In her second novel in the dramatic Baxter series, Kathy Herman unleashes a kidnapper’s unresolved anger and explores the honest depths of a believer’s anger at God. Sinister messages threaten the lives of two teenage girls while the citizens of Baxter struggle to cope with the evil that plagues this once-peaceful town. How will they react when they learn who’s responsible? Can anything break their cycle of bitterness?

When a bizarre houseboat explosion rocks the close-knit community of Baxter, firefighters, friends, and neighbors stand powerless as the McConnells’ blazing hull sinks to the bottom of Heron Lake. Grief turns to outrage as new evidence proves there was one survivor — and points to murder, something this sheltered community has never faced in its hundred-year history. In a race with the FBI, Jed sets out to track down the sole survivor, coping meanwhile with his own painful marital struggle. Baxter’s mystery and Jed’s dilemma are ones only God can solve in this suspenseful, surprising story of redemption amidst despair in small-town America.