Widowmaker

DELAMAR, NEVADA, 1907THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR IS OVER BUT A NEW CONFLICT IS RAGINGacross the western United States. Wealthy mine owners and their political allies in CrippleCreek, Colorado, and Butte, Montana, have paid for state and private armies to brutallysuppress striking miners, so when a series of extraordinary gold and silver discoveries pullNevada out of a punishing, 25-year depression, the Silver State's isolated mining camps areflooded with rootless, violent men determined to grab their share.Half-mad and ill-equipped to confront his own troubled past, army veteran ShepardSunday drifts into Delamar and takes work as a detective for the Eastern Nevada Mine Owners'Association. When Jack Lipford, the Association's corrupt president, pits this organizationagainst the local miners' union, workers begin to disappear. An old adversary's untimely arrivaldraws Sunday further into this conflict with horrific force. Enraged at Lipford's depravityand repulsed by his own role as Prince Jack's chief enforcer, Sunday is set on a collisioncourse with his powerful boss.Betrayed by friends and hunted by his former associates, Sunday faces an impossiblechoice: cooperate with old enemies in the fanatical Western Federation of Miners or faceLipford's forces alone. But with the union riddled with spies and riven with conflicts of itsown, their help might just earn him a short ride to a shallow grave.From the deserts of Nevada to the jungles of the southern Philippines, Widowmaker isa hard-bitten portrayal of a restless nation on the brink of class warfare-and of a man atwar with himself. Thoroughly researched, rich with historical and fictional characters, andsuspenseful from start to finish, Widowmaker lands its punches.