Squaw Man

He came for a five-hundred-dollar bounty. He stayed to burn the town down.Eldridge Sample rides into the mining boomtown of Solitude looking for two cheap bank robbers and a quiet drink. What he finds is a kingdom built on theft. Prosper King, a ruthless land baron, owns the gold, the water, and the law-and he just murdered a prospector in broad daylight to prove it.When the dead man’s Apache wife, Nita, screams for justice in a street full of cowards, King orders his men to silence her. But he didn’t count on the drifter watching from the shadows.Abandoning his bounty, Sample rescues the widow and uncovers a conspiracy that runs deeper than the mineshafts beneath the street. King isn’t just stealing a claim; he’s stealing the future of the territory.Trapped in a town where the sheriff is bought, the deputies are outlaws, and the only friend they have is a terrified undertaker, Sample and Nita are forced into a deadly game of cat-and-mouse. From the claustrophobic darkness of a drainage tunnel to a tense standoff in a church bell tower, they must keep the proof of King’s crimes alive until the circuit judge arrives.But when the law finally steps off the stagecoach, Sample learns a hard lesson: in Solitude, the gavel is just another weapon in the tyrant’s hand.Out of options and out of time, Sample decides that if he can’t save the town, he’ll save the truth.'King wanted a fire. We’re going to give him a town full of it.'Explosive, noir-tinged, and morally complex, Town of Ash is a Western thriller about the price of corruption and the cleansing power of fire. Perfect for fans of Deadwood, the tactical action of The Way of the Gun, and the hard-boiled style of Elmore Leonard.