Beth Thatcher's excitement over her return to Coal Valley, her anticipated engagement, and the expansion of her school is mitigated by the arrival of a new teacher whose philosophy of education clashes with Beth's beliefs.

"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.

Considine and Pete Runyon had once been friends, back in the days when both were cowhands. But when Runyon married the woman Considine loved, the two parted ways. Runyon settled down and became a sheriff. Considine took up robbing banks. Now Considine is planning a raid on the bank at Obaro, a plan that will pit him against Runyon ... and lead to riches or suicide. The one thing he never counted on was meeting a strong, beautiful woman and her stubborn...

Territorial marshals Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch figured things had finally settled down in Appaloosa when Boston Bill Black's murder charge was dropped. But all that changed when Augustus Noble Driggs was transferred to a stateside penitentiary just across the border from Mexico. Square-jawed, handsome, and built like a muscled thoroughbred stallion, Driggs manages to intimidate everyone inside the prison walls, including the upstart young warden....

Lifetime outlaws Jimmy "Slash" Braddock and Melvin "Pecos Kid" Baker are ready to call it quits, but when the younger members of their gang rebel, they must pull one last job to finance a retirement far away from the long arm of the law.