"New York Times bestselling author James Lee Burke brings readers a captivating tale of justice, love, brutality, and mysticism set in the turbulent 1960s"--

Arriving in a small nineteenth-century western town where the sheriff has been killed and the residents are at the mercy of a renegade rancher, lawmen Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch face an adversary who works by playing psychological games.

When gold is discovered outside the town of Appaloosa, marshals Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch find their problems multiplying as two mining factions fight over the claim and anonymous letters to the editor of the local paper lead them to a series of murders and in pursuit of the killer.

Continues the adventures of characters created by the late Robert B. Parker and finds Territorial Marshalls Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch escorting a group of Mexican prisoners on a train trip to the border, only to find the journey complicated by the Governor of Texas and a vengeful outlaw from Virgil's past.

Flagon and Galloway Sackett were just looking for a place to start ranching. They found a big, wide, lonely country and, at first, plenty of room. Then Bull Dunn and his two sons decided they wanted it all. When the battle for possession of the land began, Flagon was already in bad shape. He had been taken by Apache Indians, and by the time he escaped, just surviving left him in no condition for any kind of trouble. Bull Dunn's son, Curly, was...

"In the wake of the death of his wife as she gives birth to his son, and the killing of his brother on the West Texas plains, John Kerney is forced to give up his ranch, leave his son behind, and strike out in search of the murderous outlaws and a place where he can start over. He drifts south until he meets a man who offers him work trailing cattle to the New Mexico Territory and forever changes his life"--

When a flashy, womanizing casino owner, who is implicated in a series of murders, disappears, Cole and Hitch set out on his trail.