While the Town Slept

JOHNSTONE COUNTRY. LAND OF ASSASSINS.

Deputy U.S. Marshal Tim Colter, an unsung hero of the American West who survived the harsh frontier, fought in the Civil War, and now faces the greatest danger of all: a plot to kill the U.S. President . . .

Wyoming Territory, 1873. Tim Colter and his trusted guide, mountain man Jed Reno, are on the trail of a vicious gang of train robbers when they happen upon a bloody and shocking scene. Lying on the ground, barely breathing, a Secret Service agent has been left for dead in the wake of a brutal ambush. His final words: “President Grant . . . assassination . . . Dugan . . . trust nobody.”

It’s a message that chills Colter and Reno to the bone. President Ulysses S. Grant is scheduled to arrive soon in Cheyenne. Dugan is a former Confederate guerilla who leads a notorious gang of cutthroats. And the agent’s last words—“trust nobody”—suggest this conspiracy could reach to the highest levels of American power. Colter and Reno are determined to stop the assassins by any means possible—even if they have to enter hell itself, better known as Dugan’s Den. But to get there, they’ll have to bust a lady outlaw out of prison then convince her to take them to Dugan’s hideout—with a lunatic killer on their tail and the president on a collision course with death . . .

William W. Johnstone is the #1 bestselling Western writer in America and the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of hundreds of books, with over 50 million copies sold. Born in southern Missouri, he was raised with strong moral and family values by his minister father, and tutored by his schoolteacher mother. He left school at fifteen to work in a carnival and then as a deputy sheriff before serving in the army. He went on to become known as "the Greatest Western writer of the 21st Century." Visit him online at WilliamJohnstone.net.

J.A. Johnstone learned to write from the master himself, Uncle William W. Johnstone, who began tutoring J.A. at an early age. After-school hours were often spent retyping manuscripts or researching his massive American Western History library as well as the more modern wars and conflicts. J.A. worked hard and learned, later going on to become the co-author of William W. Johnstone’s many bestselling westerns and thrillers. J.A. Johnstone lives on a ranch in Tennessee and more information is at WilliamJohnstone.net.