Ralph Compton The Robber Barons: A Ralph Compton Western

A Pinkerton agent’s cushy assignment turns out to be anything but in this exciting installment in bestselling author Ralph Compton’s Sundown Riders series.

When Luke Lessing drew the assignment to guard the gifts at a big important wedding in New Mexico, everyone at the Pinkerton Agency waited to see what he’d do next. Some coworkers figured the bosses wanted Luke to refuse, quit the agency, and take his cowboying ways to some rinky-dink sheriff job where he’d grow fat or get shot. His pals saw the assignment as a fair reward for his last job, when he recovered a stolen Ferris wheel for a circus. But one individual shook his head, dashed out of the Pinkerton office to the nearest Western Union, and sent off an urgent warning: fly in the ointment. Name of Lessing.

Stuck between mountain crevices in southern New Mexico, Salsipuedes has grown into a place where criminals, politicians, and grifters can retire according to their fondest dreams. For Luke, what starts off as a week of high quality eats, booze, and civil—if corrupt—conversation turns into the case of a lifetime: the ambitious heist of the secret booty of some retired but still very dangerous crooks.