The dust has yet to settle in the new frontier town of Resolution. It's barely even a town: a general store, a handful of saloons and a run-down brothel for the workers at a nearby copper mine. No sheriff has been appointed, and gunslingers have taken control.





Amid the chaos, itinerant lawman Everett Hitch has created a small haven of order at the Blackfoot Saloon. Charged with protecting the girls who work the back room, Hitch has seen off passing cowboys and violent punters - though it's his scheming boss, Amos Woolfson, who stirs up the most trouble.





When a greedy mine owner threatens the local ranchers, Woolfson ends up at the centre of a makeshift war. Hitch knows only too well how to protect himself, but with the bloodshed mounting, he's relieved when his friend Virgil Cole rides into town. In a place where justice and order don't yet exist, Cole and Hitch must lay down the law - without violating their codes of honour, duty and friendship.



Robert B. Parker is a crime-writing legend. His novels, featuring the wise-cracking private-eye, Spenser, shaped crime fiction and dominate the US bestseller lists on publication. At the 2002 Edgar Awards, Parker was named Grand Master of Crime Fiction, an honour shared with Alfred Hitchcock and Ellery Queen.



Where better than the Old West for [Parker's] terse, punchy dialogue; buddy-bond themes; and propulsive, rock-steady storytelling?



An exercise in pure, old-fashioned storytelling... fresh, fast and sure... The work of a master craftsman



Why Robert Parker is not better known in Britain is a mystery



A sparse, bullet-ridden rumination on law and order