Iron Star
A Novel
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- Pre-Order
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- Expected Jun 18, 2024
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- $14.99
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- Pre-Order
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
Set against the sprawling landscape of the Wild West, this riveting adventure by Spur Award-winning author Loren D. Estleman follows a man on a journey to set his legacy, and the men dedicated to bringing his story to life.
From his youth as a revolutionist to his time as a Deputy U.S. Marshal, aging lawman Iron St. John has become a larger-than-life figure—and in the process, the man has disappeared behind the myth. During his brief, unsuccessful political career, St. John published his memoirs—a sanitized version of his adventures to appeal to the masses. A generation later, the clouded truth of this giant of the Old West has been all but lost.
Now, Buck Jones, a pioneering film star, is vying for a cinematic story that will launch his career to incredible heights. He approaches Emmet Rawlings, a retired Pinkerton detective, to set the record of St. John’s life straight once and for all. Twenty years ago, Rawlings accompanied St. John on his final manhunt, and in desperate need for the funding a successful book promises, he dives deep into St. John’s past—and his own buried memories—to tell the truth about this part-time hero.
As the story of St. John unfolds, the romance of the period is stripped away to reveal a reality long-forgotten in this unvarnished, heart-racing depiction of the American West by acclaimed author Loren D. Estleman.
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this captivating sequel to 1983's Mister St. John, Estleman (the Amos Walker series) delivers a top-notch western that deromanticizes its own genre. In 1926, former Pinkerton operative Emmett Rawlings has retired to Minnesota to focus his energies on publishing a history of the detective agency. Though Rawlings received permission from his boss for the project—and already spent the advance—the agency's attorney has threatened legal action if he proceeds. Desperate for cash, Rawlings accepts an invitation from flailing western movie star Buck Jones to collaborate on a film about Rawlings's old colleague, Deputy U.S. Marshal Iron St. John. Twenty years earlier, St. John published a tight-lipped memoir, but Jones knows there's more to the story, and Rawlings might be the man to tell it. After all, he accompanied St. John on his final manhunt: the pursuit of the fugitive bank-robbing Buckner gang. Hoping to turn Rawlings's recollections into a rip-roaring screenplay that will jump-start his career, Jones instead learns that the Old West was grittier, less heroic, and quite a bit bloodier than he'd imagined. Estleman affectionately takes an axe to the tropes on which he built his career while delivering a gripping story in its own right. This finds a crime fiction legend working in a delightful new register.
