I actually wrote this book last year. I'd finished it, printed it off, and stuck it in an envelope ready to post to Robert Hale. Then I logged on to Royal Mail to print off a stamp only for the site to clog up and refuse to print, so I amused myself for a few minutes while I waited for it to clear. And it was then that I read the news that Hale had just announced they were closing.
Anyhow, I waited a while before trying the new publisher of the Black Horse series and I was delighted to find they are just as approachable and just as quick to report back as Hale was. So I remain hopeful that the series is in good hands and should keep going for a while longer, or at least until Dodgy Dave burns down the last library and stomps on the ashes.
This book returns to one of my favourite locales of the Barren Plains and this time, after getting several mentions in previous books, it finally has scenes set at the Bleak Point silver mine at the heart of the Barren Plains.
It'll be my 34th Black Horse Western and I guess it'll be out some time in 2017. Here's my draft blurb:
When Marshal Rattigan Fletcher failed
to stop Jasper Minx raiding the town bank, the angry townsfolk forced him to
leave Ash Valley in disgrace. Rattigan went west in pursuit of Jasper, and in
the inhospitable Barren Plains he got a chance to put right his mistake.
Rattigan
is hired to find out why men from the Bleak Point silver mine have been
disappearing in mysterious circumstances. As Jasper now works at the mine,
Rattigan doesn't have to look far for a culprit, but Jasper claims he's not
responsible. With the miners siding with Jasper, Rattigan will need to
rediscover his tarnished instincts as a lawman if he is ever to solve the
mystery and bring his Nemesis to justice.
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