Synopsis

An economic collapse has shattered the nation’s body politic, and two extremist creeds have fused into one ascendant political force. Its leader, Phelix Blackstock, wants to resurrect Jim Crow inside a Stalinist state. When he seizes power, he will cleanse the nation of dissenters.

The story begins in tiny Rose, Mississippi, the birthplace of President Curtis Cole. When Sheriff Clyde Savage, a Choctaw lawman, learns of a murdered infant, he knows the killer: Wallace Slade, the racist thug who gunned down his father twenty years ago. At last, a chance for justice. But Clyde has stepped into something far larger — Blackstock’s plot to overthrow the U.S. government, beginning with a murder spree designed to draw President Cole home, where a primordial forest offers perfect cover for an assassin.

Racing to stop the cataclysm he senses coming, Clyde finds an ally in Caroline McCool, a medical doctor and his first love. Together they discover that their only hope is Thomas Fleming, an abused child hiding in the wilderness.

The Heathen Paradise is a propulsive thriller about fanaticism, violence, and hope in a nation tearing itself apart.