Margins
Shadow of the Gun book cover
Shadow of the Gun
2008
First Published
3.70
Average Rating
304
Number of Pages

A lawless town lives in the shadow of fear in this western in Ralph Compton's USA Today bestselling series. Tam Elliot founded Eden Creek to be a utopia of peace and prosperity. The town achieved neither, and in despair Elliot took his own life. His daughter Allison rechristened the town Suicide, blaming its folks for its failure. From her hillside house, she collects property dues from the lost souls unfortunate enough to still reside there—and punishes anyone attempting to leave. John McBride came west to start a new life, only to find himself saddled with the moniker “Tenderfoot Kid” after a single gunfight. He purchased a restaurant in Suicide hoping to put his past behind him, but with marauding Apaches, vicious outlaws, and rising tensions between the townsfolk and Allison Elliot, the town is a powder keg waiting to explode—and McBride’s presence just may be enough to light the fuse… More Than Six Million Ralph Compton Books In Print!

Avg Rating
3.70
Number of Ratings
43
5 STARS
28%
4 STARS
35%
3 STARS
21%
2 STARS
12%
1 STARS
5%
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Author

Joseph A. West
Joseph A. West
Author · 27 books

Joe West was born and raised in the seaside town of Saltcoats in Scotland. At 19 he became a police officer, but soon turned his love of writing into a career as a journalist, working for the Daily Mirror in London among others. In 1972 West was recruited as a reporter for the National Enquirer, and began working in the United States. Traveling the world in search of stories, West almost froze to death on an Alaska mountain, and a spider bite nearly killed him in the Amazon rainforest. 'I swelled up like a balloon and turned a real pretty violet color,' he recalls. Now a full-time novelist, West and his wife Emily reside in sunny Lake Worth, Florida, where he enjoys tamer pursuits like canoeing the alligator-infested swamps of the Everglades. His daughter Alexandria attends a local college where she studies forensic technology. She will have absolutely nothing to do with canoes and alligators. West researches the settings of his novels by exploring the terrain in person, usually with little more than a sleeping bag and a can of coffee. Recently he and Emily celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary at the Lodge in Cloudcroft, New Mexico, a gift from the students at Rio Rancho High School who use West's first novel as a textbook. They then spent a month in the mountains and deserts of New Mexico, often pitching their tent where the air is thin at 9,000 feet above the flat.

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