John Henry Cole

Business lately has been deadly for Ike Kelly. Recent unexpected gunplay has whittled his detective agency down to a single operative: a man named John Henry Cole. Cole is the only man left when a new assignment comes in from a former lover of Kelly's, a woman operating an escort service in the new mining camp of Deadwood in Dakota Territory. Three of the young women working for her have been murdered, and someone is trying to cover up their deaths. It's a dangerous job, and Cole is advised that he must take every precaution-as if he needed such advice. The legendary Wild Bill Hickok was recently murdered at Deadwood, and Calamity Jane Canary and Doc Holliday are among Cole's potential suspects. Add that to a corrupt constable and a bounty hunter who just happens to be an old enemy of Cole's, and it's clear there are many who will not welcome his arrival in Deadwood. Cole is a lonely man in a lonely profession, and finding a murderer in the wild mining camp could be less of a challenge than simply staying alive. Using real-life characters and settings from one of the most notorious times in the history of the Wild West, veteran author Bill Brooks spins another edge-of-your-seat thriller.

When a detective is murdered in a fire, his partner sets out on a mission for revenge to track down his mysterious killer. John Henry Cole is an operative of Ike Kelly's Detective Agency, based out of Cheyenne, Wyoming Territory. Returning to Cheyenne from what had been a deadly assignment in Deadwood, Dakota Territory, Cole has decided that he has no alternative but to resign from the agency and pursue a different line of work. However, in Cheyenne, Cole learns that Ike Kelly has been murdered and his body burned in a fire that destroyed both the agency office and the shop next door. No one seems to have any idea who might have murdered Kelly, and Leo Foxx, the town marshal, is so disinterested in the crime that an investigation has yet to be conducted. Thirsty for revenge, Cole is set on the trail of an apparent suspect, the black man Leviticus Book, accompanied by a bounty hunter, Will Harper. As the pursuit unfolds, Cole's suspicions are proven wrong, his love life unravels, and his expectations are thwarted as the mystery takes a turn.

The winter around Cheyenne, Wyoming, is devastating, killing both people and livestock. John Henry Cole lives three miles out of town on his small ranch, where he waits out the storm that is quickly killing his cattle and horses. Everything he owns is dying before his eyes, and there isn't anything he can do about it. His dreams of a settled life are as dead as everything else. He knows it's time to move on, and move on he does-but not in the direction he expected. Teddy Green, a Texas ranger, arrives in Cheyenne and seeks Cole's help in locating Ella Mims, a woman who once lived in Cheyenne and with whom Cole had once been intimate. Green wants to question Mims concerning her involvement in a Denver City murder ... but he's not the only one searching for her.

John Henry Cole, working as a deputy US marshal out of Judge Isaac Parker's court in Fort Smith, Arkansas, was on assignment in the Indian Nations when he was shot and seriously injured. Now, fifteen years later, employed as a deputy for Judge Roy Bean in Texas, Cole receives a personal summons from Judge Parker to appear in his court within thirty days. Cole isn't inclined to go, but he knows whatever's on Judge Parker's mind is serious and decides he has to go.

John Henry Cole worked for years in Cheyenne, Wyoming-first as a policeman, and later a detective. He enjoyed the work, despite its dangers, but it was time for a change. So he decided to open his own agency, one staffed by former lawmen like himself. In practice they might be bounty hunters, but he hired men he had worked with before that he knew and trusted to be honorable and professional-and then they got to work. And work it was. Cole's agency was located in just about the most dangerous place it could be: Red Pony, in the Cherokee strip, a region often referred to as a no-man's-land because of its rampant outlawry. But the way Cole saw it, what better place to hunt for outlaws with bounties on their heads? But Cole's team may have bit off more than it can chew when it sets out to capture the notorious Sam Starr and his outlaw gang, and bring them all to justice.

John Henry Cole's life has quieted down from what it had always been, and he can now settle down and make improvements on his small ranch. But everything changes when an old rancher named Wilson rides in with his two sons. Wilson is willing to pay Cole $5,000 to help get back his wife, Lenora, who has been taken hostage by Lucky Jack Dancer, an outlaw who had robbed the train on which she was a passenger. She is being held prisoner in Gun Town, a safe haven for outlaws. Cole had sided Lucky Jack Dancer years ago when both of them had operated as US marshals in the Indian Nations, but that was before Lucky Jack had quit the service and become an outlaw. The situation becomes complicated when Cole learns that Wilson's son doesn't want the woman back and that Wilson's health is seriously compromised.