Author Description

Nathan Locke is the pastor of Basilwood Presbyterian Church, an ambitious man who carefully and charismatically manipulates his congregation to build a power base and financial empire within the town. Helen Jensen live with her fragile dreams, watching them shatter around her. She is desperately in love with only one man. Unfortunately, it is not her husband. Raymond Lynch came from his home in New England to teach in Mississippi schools. He's a yankee. He's an outcast. He dares to openly challenge the minister as he desperately tries to hide from the shame of his past. Tom Beecher is a maverick, the aging former attorney general of Mississippi who has seen too much, who knows too much, who keeps too many secrets, especialy the one that haunts him like a nightmare without an end. Birdie Castleberry and Alice Setzer deal with what they know best, lies, rumors, half-truths, and gossip. Their tongues are the most deadly weapons in town. Martha Landers doesn't belong in Vicksburg society and never will, a prostitute whose fading beauty is wasted on a man who can never return the love that rages deep insode her. Max Gordon was the foundation of Basilwood society, a banker with both wealth and a solid reputation. He had it all. And no one knows why he held a shotgun to his head and pulled the trigger. The wages of sin are death. The time has come to collect.