The majestic landscapes of Brett Harte's California unite with Larry McMurtry's epic old west realism in an explosion of love, lust, murder and betrayal that comes to a powerful climax along a beautiful stream, home to the largest strike in the mines, where a burning barn ignites the passion of a gold rush boomtown and, in one dark night of revenge, earns that stream the name it bears to this day—HANGTOWN CREEK.

When Lacey showed up in Hangtown Tom was smitten. She was looking for a Pa who’d come to the mines and disappeared. Tom had to help her, but when somebody shot him things went south in a hurry. He’d learned her pa was an army officer looking for turncoats from the Mexican War. Tom had stuck his nose deep into the evil skullduggery of some pretty bad men. If he didn’t find her pa soon the next goose cooked could be hers. That notion chilled him to the bone.

An ambitious Tom Marsh, looking to expand his gold rush freight business, finds himself falsely accused of murdering a young girl and is tossed into the Sonoma, California hoosegow along with a Mexican hombre who is himself accused of a murder he did not commit, but who could well be the most infamous bandito in California, Joaquin Murrieta. Together the two break out of jail and now Tom must stick close to Joaquin and his gang while he fights to prove his innocence.