American Odyssey

Max McCoy, the three-time Spur Award-winning author of Damnation Road, continues his American Western saga of the Ghost Rifle as the violence and bloodshed the weapon caused return to haunt the man who created it...

THE WEAPON AND THE WILDERNESS

Ten years have passed since Jack Picaro lost his Ghost Rifle—the firearm he invented, the one that never missed its target. The loss of the rifle calmed the hellraiser in his soul. Instead of returning to the gambling halls and whiskey bars of St. Louis, Jack has spent the last decade as a fur trapper in Wyoming’s Wild River Range, married to Sky, the daughter of an Arikara war chief.

Then, after helping rescue U.S. soldiers captured by Crow Indians in the Rocky Mountains, Jack hears the familiar bell-like report of his Ghost Rifle. Determined to retrieve his deadly property, he travels deep into Lakota territory, facing down old enemies—and resuming old sinful habits—unaware of what awaits him when he eventually returns home to his family.

“Few Western writers today can spin a tale with style, wit, and rawness better than Max McCoy.”
—Johnny D. Boggs, Western Heritage and Spur Award-winning author of West Texas Kill
 

Max McCoy is an award-winning novelist and journalist, an associate professor at Emporia State University, and director of the Tallgrass Writing Workshop. A three-time Spur Award winner and the recipient of the 2018 National Outdoor Book Award, his novels Of Grave Concern and Hellfire Canyon were both named Notable Books by the State Library of Kansas. In addition to writing dark, offbeat Westerns and historical fiction, he’s the author of thrillers, original Indiana Jones adventures, the novelization of Steven Spielberg's epic miniseries "Into the West,” and the first three volumes in Wylde's West, a paranormal mystery series. McCoy began his career in journalism at the Pittsburg Morning Sun and writing for pulp magazines such as "True Detective" and "Front-Page Detective." As investigative writer for The Joplin Globe, he won two first-place awards in investigative journalism for his stories on serial killers and hate groups. Originally from Baxter Springs, Kansas, he lives in Emporia and can be found online at MaxMcCoy.com.