God's Thunderbolt — Carol Buchanan

Publisher's Weekly: “…an excellent western with an intense moral gravity.”Amazon Vine Review: “...history is brought alive with fine description and sensory detail.”Roundup Magazine: “…the finest novel of the vigilante era ever written. … haunting and searing.”Ruffians rule and murder is tolerated in the Alder Gulch gold fields during the winter of 1863-1864. Daniel Stark, lawyer and abolitionist, fears he will not survive to take his gold home to New York and redeem his family from the disgrace of his father's embezzlement and suicide. When a friend is murdered, Dan prosecutes the suspect, whose five lawyers are Confederates. When the trial reveals a widespread criminal conspiracy, Dan joins Union and Confederate sympathizers united in a determination to establish law and order where there is no code of law nor reliable law enforcement. Going against everything in his training and personal beliefs, Dan helps to form a Vigilance Committee and serve as its prosecutor.Then he faces the horrible prospect of hanging the husband of the woman he loves.Winner of the 2009 Spur Award for best first novel.Book 1 of The Montana Vigilante Series by Carol Buchanan.