Welcome to the Novels of Boaz, Alabama
Boaz, Alabama may seem like a quiet Southern town, but beneath its calm exterior, there are secrets waiting to be uncovered. These are the stories that make up the world of Boaz Alabama Stories—tales of mystery, intrigue, personal discovery, and redemption.
In my fourteen novels, settings all tied to Boaz, I’ve created a rich tapestry of characters—some seeking justice, others grappling with their pasts, and still more striving to understand their place in the world. From private investigators to struggling teachers, from teenagers facing the pressures of their small-town lives to the elderly uncovering long-hidden secrets, these characters will take you deep into the heart of Boaz.
Each novel offers a new look at this town, exploring the complexities of its residents and the tangled webs of mystery that surround them. Whether it’s the troubled detective Connor Ford, the emotionally complex Ruthie from God and Girl, or the determined Mia Hudson in The Boaz Scholar, these stories dive into the darkness that lurks in every small town, showing the intersections between personal journeys and the greater mysteries of life.
The novels are filled with twists, deep moral questions, and characters who evolve as they seek truth—whether that’s solving a murder, confronting old regrets, or navigating the maze of faith, love, and loyalty. Whether you’re a fan of crime thrillers, character-driven stories, or emotional narratives that explore the heart and soul of human nature, there’s something here for everyone.
Below, you’ll find a list of all my novels, with links to detailed descriptions of each one, including the characters that bring Boaz to life. Each of these novels is an invitation to explore a town like no other, filled with the mysteries and stories that keep you coming back for more.
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My novels, in order of publication, from first to last:
1. God and Girl
2. The Boaz Scorekeeper
3. The Boaz Secrets
4. The Boaz Stenographer
5. The Boaz Schoolteacher
6. The Case of the Perfectionist Professor
7. The Boaz Safecracker
8. The Boaz Scholar
9. The Boaz Stalker
10. The Boaz Seeker
11. The Boaz Stranger
12. The Boaz Student
Latest Novel–Published July 2025
14. Meghan’s Son
God and Girl
The life of fourteen-year-old Ruthie has been as common and uneventful as most any other teenage daughter of a Southern Baptist preacher. Ruthie's father, Joseph Brown, has been lead pastor of First Baptist Church for fifteen years. Ruthie has always been devoted to her father, her family, and her faith. Then, she falls head over hills in love with Ellen Ayers.
The summer before Ruthie's 9th grade year, Ellen moved with her parents from Chicago to Boaz where her mother will teach Biology at Boaz High School.
Ruthie and Ellen's relationship blossoms quickly into a once in life love despite Ruthie's love and respect for her father, and her deep devotion to God.
Ruthie and Ellen's curiosity and imagination propels their relationship far beyond teenage romance, taking them onto a journey exploring Christian Fundamentalism and Evolutionary Science, ultimately finding new truths in unexpected places.
Ruthie and Ellen's attraction and love was instant the moment they met. However, their journey to understand the world--churches, gays, pastors, Christians, and even a pre-human species--took nearly two years, dozens of late night Biology study sessions, and three fateful trips to Mentone, Alabama.
The new truths and deeper understanding didn't change one essential thing. From the beginning, Ruthie and Ellen both knew their love was forever and always.
Read the 1st ten chapters for free. Click here.
The Boaz Scorekeeper
Micaden Lewis Tanner grew up on a farm in the Arona Community outside Boaz, Alabama. He was an excellent student and football player at Boaz High School but failed miserably on the basketball court. Needing something to do after his Sophomore football season, he became the scorekeeper for the basketball team. This gave him an excuse to avoid farm work and the opportunity to renew his elementary school friendships with the Flaming Five.
These five guys, all members of prominent Boaz families, knew nothing but a life of privilege and the sweet sound of net. They broke every school record including having two team members--James Adams and Randall Radford--awarded scholarships to Auburn University.
But, before the next phase of life could begin, all their lives eternally changed on May 25, 1972 during their High School graduation party at Club Eden on Aurora Lake.
Over the next 79 years, Micaden would experience how power, money, and corruption could protect its owners, and prevent or delay justice from ever seeing daylight from the dark halls of the criminal justice system. Undeterred, Micaden modified and mastered the lessons and skills he learned on the farm and at the basketball score-table, to find creative ways to mete out justice and forever remain The Boaz Scorekeeper.
Read the 1st ten chapters for free. Click here.
The Boaz Secrets
Fifteen year-old Matt Benson moves with Robert, his widowed father, to Boaz, Alabama for one year as Robert conducts research on Southern Baptist Fundamentalism. Robert, a professor of Bible History and new Testament Theology at the University of Chicago's Divinity School enlists Matt to assist him as an undercover agent at First Baptist Church of Christ. Matt's job is to befriend the most active young person in the Church's youth group and learn the heart and mind of teenagers growing up as fundamentalist Southern Baptists.
Olivia Tillman is the fourteen year old daughter of Betty and Walter Tillman. He is the pastor of First Baptist Church of Christ. Robert and Matt move to Boaz in June 1970, and before high school begins in mid-August, Matt and Olivia become fast friends. Olivia's life is centered around her faith, her family, and her friends. She is struck with Matt and his doubts and vows to win him to Christ. Over the next year, Matt and Olivia's relationship blossoms into more than a teenage romance, despite their different religious beliefs.
June 1971 and Matt's return to Chicago comes too quickly, but the two teenagers vow to never lose what they have, even promising to reunite at college in three years after Olivia graduates from Boaz High School.
The Boaz Secrets is told from the perspective of past and present. The story alternates between 1970-1971, and 2017-2018. After Matt left Boaz in June 1971, life happened and Olivia and Matt's plans fell apart. However, in December 2017, their lives crossed again, almost miraculously, and they have a month in Boaz to catch up on forty-six years of being apart. They attempt to discover whether their teenage love can be rekindled and transformed into an adult romance even though Matt is 63 and Olivia is 61.
In 2017, Olivia and Matt are quick to learn they are vastly different people than they were as fifteen and sixteen year old teenagers-- especially, when it comes to religion and faith. Will these religious differences unite them? The real issue is the secret Olivia has kept. Will Matt's discovery destroy any chance he and Olivia have of rekindling their teenage relationship?
Read the first ten chapters for free. Click here.
The Boaz Stenographer
Walt Shepherd, a 35 year veteran of the White House's stenographic team, is fired by President Andrew Kane for refusing to lie.
Walt returns to his hometown of Boaz, Alabama and renews his relationship with Regina Gillan, his high school sweetheart, who he had ditched right before graduation to marry the daughter of a prominent local businessman. Regina has recently moved back to Boaz after forty years in Chicago working at the Tribune. She is now editor of the Sand Mountain Reporter, a local newspaper.
Walt and Regina's relationship transforms into a once in life love at the same time they are being immersed in a growing local and national divide between Democrats and traditional Republicans, and extremist Republicans (known as Kanites) who are becoming more dogmatic about the revolution that began during President Kanes campaign.
Walt accepts two part-time jobs. One as a stenography instructor at Snead State Community College in Boaz, and one as an itinerant stenographer with Rains & Associates out of Birmingham.
Walt later learns the owner of Rains & Associates is also one of five men who created the Constitution Foundation and is involved in a sinister plot to destroy President Kane, but is using an unorthodox method to achieve its objective. The Foundation is doing everything it can to prevent President Kane from being reelected in 2020, and is scheming to initiate a civil war that will hopefully restore allegiance to the U.S. Constitution.
While Walt is writing a book, The Coming Civil War, he is, unwittingly, gathering key information for the Constitution Foundation.
Will Walt discover a connection between the Foundation and the deaths of three U.S. Congressmen in time to save his relationship with Regina, prevent President Kane from being reelected as the defacto head of a Christian theocracy, and the eruption of a civil war that could destroy the Nation?
Read the first ten chapters for free. Click here.
The Boaz Schoolteacher
In the summer of 2017, Katie Sims and her daughter Cullie, moved from New York City to Katie's hometown of Boaz, Alabama for her to teach English and for Cullie to attend Boaz High School . Fifteen years earlier, during the Christmas holidays, five men from prominent local families sexually assaulted Katie. Nine months later, Katie's only daughter was born.
Almost from the beginning of the new school year, as Katie and fellow-teacher Cindy Barker shared English, Literature, and Creative Writing duties for more than 300 students, they became lifelong friends.
For weeks, Katie and Cindy endured the almost constant sexual harassment at the hands of the assistant principal. In mid-October, after Cindy suffered an attack similar to Katie's from fifteen years earlier, the two teachers designed a unique method to teach the six predators a lesson they would never forget. Katie and Cindy dubbed their plan, Six Red Apples.
Read this mystery-thriller to experience the dilemma the two teachers created for themselves, and to learn the true meaning of real justice. And, eternal friendship.
Read the first ten chapters for free. Click here.
The Case of the Perfectionist Professor
Late on New Year’s Eve in the small town of Boaz, Alabama, Snead State Community College teacher Adam Parker was found dead slumped over in his car. A preliminary investigation indicated the fifty year Biology professor died of a heart attack. Marissa Booth, Adam’s daughter and Vanderbilt School of Divinity professor, didn’t agree.
Four days later, Marissa hired the local private detective firm of Connor Ford to investigate her father’s death. She declared her father had likely been murdered by local police officer Jake Stone. She pointed Ford to a multi-month Facebook feud between Adam and several local people, including Stone and Boaz City Councilman Lawton Hawks. The controversy allegedly related to Adam’s research that contended that, in layman’s terms, long-term indoctrination caused actual genetic mutations that directly affected future generation’s ability to reason.
Over the course of the next year Connor Ford discovered multiple and seemingly independent sources of motivation to quiet and possibly murder the controversial professor. Ford learned that a civil lawsuit and widespread public outcry had effectively run Adam out of Knoxville where he was a Biology professor for over thirteen years. Ford also learned that Adam had become the number one enemy of Roger Williams, a self-made local businessman, and his son Alex, who is a Republican candidate for governor of Alabama. Adam had discovered Alex and Glock, Inc., the Austrian based gun manufacturer, were exploring not only the possibility of setting up a large facility in Boaz, but also supplying pistols for Alex’s highly tauted and controversial ‘arm the teachers’ proposal.
Connor Ford has his hands full enough with these suspects. Add in his need to determine whether Lawton Hawks and Jake Stone are friend or foe of Roger and Alex, accentuates the pressure no normal small town private detective can handle.
Will Connor’s discovery there is a link between Dayton, Tennessee and the 1929 Scopes Monkey trial and a rouge group of CIA operatives bend Connor and his two associates to the breaking point?
Read this mystery/thriller to find out if Adam Parker was murdered and how, and what role, if any, the long-standing controversy between science and religion had in destroying the life of a single perfectionist professor.
Read the first ten chapters for free. Click here.
The Boaz Safecracker
Fred Martin, a 1972 graduate of Boaz High School, returns to his hometown after practicing law and living in Huntsville for over thirty-five years with two goals in mind. First, to distance himself from the loss of Susan, his wife of thirty-seven years who died in 2013 of cancer. And second, to partner with his lifelong friend, Noah Waters, to crack the safes of Elton Rawlins and Doug Barber, two men who got under their skin as high school football players.
Little did Fred and Noah realize the secrets the two old Mosler safes protected. Who murdered three Boaz High School seniors in the fall of 1973? Is a near-half-century-old plan to destroy Fred’s sister and steal the inheritance from a set of 44-year-old illegitimate twins still alive and well? How far would Fred’s mother go to protect her family?
What starts out as an almost innocent prank, turns life-threateningly serious the more Fred learns and the more safes he cracks. All, while he falls in love with Connie Stewart, his one-date high school classmate who may conceal a secret or two herself.
Read the first ten chapters for free. Click here.
The Boaz Scholar
Precocious Chicago teenager Mia Hudson is growing up to love the marvels of science. But, a one-year move to Boaz, Alabama reveals a world trapped in another age, one filled with Christian fundamentalists and female jealousy. After agreeing to tutor star football player Adam Brown, Mia is brutally assaulted. The attack in the girls P.E. dressing room leaves Mia with nightmares of dying and a steeled determination to bring her five female attackers to justice.
This is before she started falling for the stunningly handsome Adam Brown, and before chief instigator and preacher's kid Jessica Miller is kidnapped by a rapist/murdering parolee.
Read this story to learn how Mia uses her love for mankind and her scholarly mind to solve a thousand piece puzzle while local law enforcement is just opening the box.
And, to experience a once-in-life teenage love story.
Read the first ten chapters for free. Click here.
The Boaz Stalker
Jennifer Stallings died of cancer three years ago. Widower Carl Stallings, a Knoxville Christian school superintendent, resigns at age 64 and returns to his and Jennifer's home town of Boaz, Alabama with two goals in mind. The first is to implement the vision for the newly-created Boaz Christian School. The second, but most primary reason, is to exact revenge on local city councilman and business owner Wiley Jones for crimes he committed as a teenager half a century ago against his three-year younger girlfriend, Jennifer Dickerson.
Read the first ten chapters for free. Click here.
The Boaz Seeker
"Am I here by accident or design?" Twelfth-grader Cullie Sims daily ponders. She's always been haunted by the circumstances of her conception. Finally, something positive will result from the vicious rape her mom suffered sixteen years ago at the hands of five local men. Cullie's now-deceased biological father is leaving her a million dollars. But, not if half-sister Riley Radford gets her way. Two violent assaults upon Cullie makes Riley's threat perfectly clear: “You will forfeit you’re inheritance or I’ll reveal incriminating evidence, enough to send your mother to prison for life.”
Three years ago, in The Boaz Schoolteacher, Katie Sims conspired with best friend and co-teacher Cindy Barker after she was raped and impregnated by assistant principal Patrick Wilkins. The two high school English teachers perfectly executed their 'Six Red Apples' plan, extracting revenge upon the half-dozen perpetrators, including kidnapping, killing, and concealing Wilkins. Perfect is not always perfect. The Wilkins apple had a worm: Riley's hidden audio-recorder.
Whether Cullie’s here by accident, design, or neither, how far will she go to protect her mom?
Read the first ten chapters for free. Click here.
The Boaz Stranger
A widowed law school professor and an unhappy housewife. A chance reunion to discover who killed their high school friend half-a-century ago. Will their investigation lead to love?
Lee Harding is a sixty-six-year-old Yale Law School professor still grieving the suicide of his wife almost a year ago. The surprise discovery of her well-hidden diaries rekindles thoughts of the mysterious disappearance and presumed death of his best high school friend in December 1969.
Prompted by a request from his in-laws for legal help, Lee returns to his hometown in North Alabama. He cannot resist investigating his wife’s secret recordings.
Lee encounters Lillian for the first time in half-a-century. She’s the high school girlfriend who dumped him for Ray Archer, the man Lillian now despises. Plus, she believes he was not only a criminal in high school, but is still involved in illegal activities.
Lee and Lillian team up to discover the truth. Will they bring Ray to justice? Will they rekindle the love that’s lain dormant for fifty years?
If you like interesting characters, the unveiling of long-buried secrets, and kick ass amateur sleuths, you’ll love this whodunit/romance novel by Richard L. Fricks.
Buy The Boaz Stranger to read Richard’s tenth mystery set in his hometown of Boaz, Alabama.
Read the first ten chapters for free. Click here.
The Boaz Student
Bret, a high school student and devoted Southern Baptist youth leader, is a model of faith and conviction. But when unsettling doubts begin to gnaw at the edges of his belief, his world starts to unravel. Struggling to reconcile his growing questions with the unwavering expectations of his church, family, and friends, Bret finds himself on an isolating path of truth-seeking.
As whispers turn into accusations and support turns into suspicion, Bret must ask himself: How far will a small town go to silence uncomfortable questions? And what will it cost him to keep asking them?
Raw, thought-provoking, and deeply human, The Boaz Student explores the courage it takes to confront deeply held beliefs—and the sacrifices required to live authentically.
Read the first ten chapters for free. Click here.
Millie’s Daughter
In Millie’s Daughter, a mother's fierce determination to protect her daughter propels them on a harrowing escape from domestic violence. Millie and her daughter Molly embark on a treacherous journey to New York City, seeking safety and a new life. Pursued by Millie's vengeful ex-partner Colton, their path is fraught with danger and unexpected alliances.
Amidst their quest for freedom, journalist Andrew Spivey's investigation into a series of crimes intertwines with their story, escalating into a nationwide manhunt. The narrative culminates in a devastating confrontation, leaving deep emotional scars and unresolved tensions.
As the aftermath of tragedy unfolds, the novel explores the resilience and coping mechanisms of Molly, her father Michael, and grandfather Micaden Tanner. In Alabama, Molly faces the prospect of a new beginning at Hickory Hollow, navigating grief, family bonds, and her own evolving identity. This poignant tale is a testament to the enduring power of love and the strength of the human spirit.
Read the first ten chapters for free. Click here.
Meghan’s Son
A Prequel to the Molly & Billy Mystery Series
When the truth threatens the church, silence becomes sacred. But not to her.
Meghan Orr was raised to obey—her father’s sermons, her church’s rules, her community’s expectations. But when the boy she loved was murdered and the whispers led back to the pulpit, obedience gave way to something fiercer: a quiet, relentless pursuit of truth.
Armed with her intellect and her unborn child, Meghan escapes the world that once defined her. Over the next fourteen years, she builds a new life—earning academic prestige, uncovering buried financial crimes, and documenting every clue connected to the secrets that stole her future.
But some truths refuse to stay buried. As Meghan’s investigation deepens, so do the dangers—until protecting her son, William Franklin Orr, becomes more urgent than finishing the work.
Gripping, thought-provoking, and deeply personal, Meghan’s Son is the story of one woman’s defiance against institutional power—and the legacy she fights to leave behind.
Read the first ten chapters for free. Click here.
The Pencil Driven Life 