From the USA Today bestselling author, a Western saga of an Iowa farm boy who stumbles into a new life as a frontier legend . . . In 1848, Dooley Monahan, son of struggling Iowa pioneers, went off to pick up a new milk cow. Young Dooley never came home. Now, nearly three decades later, Dooley Monahan has become an accidental legend, managing to plant a bullet in the chest of a dangerous outlaw. All Dooley really wants is to claim his reward at a bank in Phoenix and make his way north to a gold strike he read about in a newspaper. But fate has other plans. It starts with a family slaughtered by Apaches, a dog smarter than most humans Dooley knows, and a girl with a wounded soul. And the blood-hungry brothers of the outlaw Dooley killed will not give up their pursuit until they've avenged his death. The farther north Dooley tries to head, the further west destiny pushes him. His trail is populated by strange friends and dangerous enemies, strewn with bad luck and bad blood—and frequently interrupted by sudden storms of gunfire . . .

THE GREATEST WESTERN WRITERS OF THE 21ST CENTURY The accidental gunslinger Dooley Monahan has quit wandering and settled down to a farmer’s life. But when the itch for adventure gets too strong, he packs up and rides west. Along with his horse General Grant, and Blue, a dog who’s too smart for his own good, Dooley rides for the Black Hills to strike it rich in the gold fields of Colorado. But fate has other ideas. When the trigger-happy Dobbs-Queeg gang holds up the Omaha bank, Dooley is mistaken for one of the robbers, and a price is plastered on his head. With every lawman in the territory hot on his trail, Dooley has no choice but to join up with the murderous outlaws. If the hangman doesn’t get him, his new friends will, but Dooley won’t turn back. With Blue and General Grant at his side, Dooley will make his fortune—come hell, high water, and everything in between. BECAUSE WHEN YOU’RE DOOLEY MONAHAN, TROUBLE AIN’T FAR BEHIND Also Available in Audiobook

Johnstone Country. Frontier Spirit Lives Here. There are a lot of ways a man can end up on a wanted poster. There’s the easy way (murder), there’s the hard way (robbery), and then there’s Dooley Monahan’s way (by accident.) On the trail west with his trusty horse and dog, the hapless gunslinger stops a mean, hungry bear from making lunch out of the legendary Buffalo Bill Cody. In turn, Cody grubstakes Dooley for the purchase of a silver mine in the lawless, violent boomtown of Leadville, Colorado. Dooley can’t believe his good luck. But when he guns down three deadly outlaws, the grateful townsfolk pin a sheriff’s badge on Dooley. And that’s when his luck runs out . . . Turns out there’s a war going on between two rival gangs. Stagecoaches are being robbed every other day, and fingers are being pointed at Dooley himself. There’s a tradition here in these parts, he discovers. If a sheriff’s no good, they hang him. And if the next one’s no better, they hang him twice . . .