Janet Hughes

“If a man won’t fight for what is rightly his, then he ain’t much account.” With this challenge from his dying father, young Shell Tucker rode out after three men who had stolen the twenty thousand dollars his father was carrying. Two of the men he hunted, Doc Sites and Kid Reese, were his friends. Dreaming of adventure, Tucker had wanted to join their gang. But now, with his father gone and the people back home desperately in need of the proceeds from the cattle drive, Shell was determined to uphold his father’s reputation and recover their money.

Jim Cleve has been deemed "a good guy" all of his life and it agitates him to no end. Even his girlfriend, Joan Randle, has scorned him for this "weakness," shouting, "You haven't it in you even to be BAD!" Dejected and hurt, Jim abandons the life he has known for the gold mining camps along Alder Gulch in southern Montana. It is here, among the thieves and murderers, that he must make a new name for himself.

A retired group of legendary mercenaries get the band back together for one last impossible mission in this award-winning debut epic fantasy. Clay Cooper and his band were once the best of the best, the most feared and renowned crew of mercenaries this side of the Heartwyld. Their glory days long past, the mercs have grown apart and grown old, fat, drunk, or a combination of the three. Then an ex-bandmate turns up at Clay's door with a plea for help - the kind of mission that only the very brave or the very stupid would sign up for. It's time to get the band back together.