Ralph Compton The Reluctant Lawman — Craig Barstow

A gunman wants to hang up his Colts in this fast-paced installment of Ralph Compton's Sundown Riders series.
 
Luke Lessing was told his career at the Pinkerton Agency was assured, thanks to his skill with pistol and rifle. But when his partner got ambushed, Luke was widely blamed. Discouraged with Pinkerton politics, he moved on to a job as sheriff in a “sleepy” little town in Colorado, only to barely escape with his life.

So Luke happily traded wearing a badge for cooking at the Comstock Café in Virginia City, hub of the fabled Comstock Lode. He'd put his past behind him -- until a bushwhacked marshal and a confrontation with an old enemy drag him into a whirlpool of corruption, missing miners, and concealed treasure, where you can never tell who will betray you next.

Luke's pressured to pin on a badge yet again, not only by the Secretary of the Nevada Territory, but the Secretary's boss, who happens to be President of the United States. There's a lot of dough on the line, but not the kind he's got a talent for. What does a fella have to do to get back to baking biscuits?
 
More than eight million Ralph Compton books in print!