Western Author James R. Wilder Book Signing Dec. 7 at Library Center
November 20, 2019 — James R. Wilder will sell and sign copies of “Terror Near Town” and its sequel, “Tough Times in Grubville,” from 11 a.m.-1 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 7, in the Library Center concourse, 4653 S. Campbell Ave.
Both novels are part of Wilder’s western Harbison Mystery series and take place in the real town of Grubville, Missouri, where Wilder spent much of his youth.
In “Terror Near Town,” Rough Rider Chet Harbison returns from the Spanish-American War and learns that a neighboring family has been killed in a mysterious fire with only their 17-year-old daughter surviving the blaze. Love between the two follows, but Chet soon finds himself fighting for his life as a murder plot unfolds.
In “Tough Times in Grubville,” the Great Depression has hit and newly earned money from livestock sales is lost forever as the bank closes. Chet is forced to pin on a deputy-sheriff’s badge and answer to a sheriff with questionable ethics. He investigates cattle thefts, speakeasies, moonshiners, gangsters and the murder of an old friend. One of his biggest challenges is adapting to the changing world of modernization, which he has been able to ignore for decades while sheltered in the rural community.