Books by Steffan Oxenrider
Welcome to my world(s)! Below are my novels, all set somewhere in the South, somewhere on the coast, and always where mystery abounds!
Dead Reckoning
1st book in the Canaan's Crossing series
On a moonlit night in November of 1973 commercial fisherman Captain Alonzo Smith and his first mate striker Bones pull up a dead body in their shrimp net in southern Blanding County, GA just south of Savannah. Thus begins a colorful tale of intrigue, thick Southern culture, beguiling characters, misguided trust, and mystery in the small coastal Georgia town of Canaan’s Crossing. Narrow creeks, marshes, swamps, and small hammock islands dot the landscape of this picturesque, historic hamlet, rife with Native American, Revolutionary, and Civil War history. Canaan’s Crossing holds secrets, sordid tales, and the ghosts of many residents, both temporary and permanent.
From the local shrimpers who see an opportunity to get into the “import” business
as a sideline, to the enterprising local characters, many have motives and all have their own particular interests at heart. The personalities of the locals and their “schemes” perpetuates an environment that is sometimes hazy, quirky, with folks unsure at times where reality begins and ends, and the locals aren’t shy about telling their stories at the corner stores where they congregate.
Giant stately oaks dripping with moss, palm trees, palmettos, Spanish bayonets,
and the tidal waters have been host to many capers, some above board, many not. When most folks are into “under the table activities” and everyone is “in deep” with everyone else, it seems it's hard to trust anyone around Canaan’s Crossing. In this small coastal town dollars are hard to come by so most do whatever it takes, and ultimately, someone paid the highest price by getting in another’s way at the wrong place, wrong time. Perhaps they saw something they shouldn’t have, perhaps they were hiding something or knew too much, but in the end they paid dearly.
Secrets are a rare commodity in this borough where everyone knows everyone else, and along these sultry and beautiful coastal waters, if you can’t speak for yourself, you can’t tell tales. Inevitably some folks learn this the hard way as the dirt roads and narrow creeks around Canaan’s Crossing can sometimes dead end in a sinister fashion and it's up to Sheriff Gage Blackwood to find the killer.
Island Casualty: The Wild Heron's Cry
2nd book in the Canaan's Crossing Series
ISBN
Sheriff Gage Blackwood works in the coastal town of Canaan’s Crossing a stone’s throw south of Savannah, Georgia. When his recently acquired friend, a Hoodoo master named Miss Charlene, asks him to help solve the murder of her sister on her barrier island home he reluctantly agrees to help. Now, with a killer still on the loose, a local Constable along for the ride aiming to help him, and a cast of intriguing suspects, Gage must adapt to the island culture and solve the mystery before another tragedy happens.
Native Echoes
3rd book in the Canaan's Crossing Series
When young Cherokee archaeologist Tim “Running Wolf” Youngblood comes to Canaan’s Crossing to study native Guale mounds and sites, he becomes an unfortunate murder suspect when Sheriff’s Deputy George Patterson is found murdered near one of the mounds he is studying. As the heated search for the killer continues, Sheriff Gage Blackwood has to make sense of it all and find the murderer against a backdrop of local drug smuggling and deception.
Stranger in the Square
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Steffan Oxenrider's first stand alone fiction title. This novel has more of what is expected of his engaging works: a rich setting, colorful characters, and of course mystery.
When a picaresque writer and his friends meet a colorfully dressed, strange man in one of the squares in beautiful Savannah, Ga, mysterious and ominous things begin to happen in their lives. It's up to the writer and his best friend to uncover the truth before it's too late for everyone involved.