Dark Prairie

Five Star launches its Frontier Fiction line with a crime novel set in the Old West from Spur Award–winner Nesbitt (Stranger in Thunder Basin). Sometime in the 1890s, a mysterious stranger named Dunbar rides into the little town of Winsome, Wyo., where he hooks on as a cow hand at the Little Six ranch. Dunbar doesn’t say much about himself, though he asks a lot of questions about the new reservoir being built and the four unelected men who run Winsome without the help of any lawmen: Fenn Fuller, owner of the mercantile store; Lon Buckley, saloon owner; Al Redington, butcher; and Henry Dornick, stone mason. Dunbar’s probing about some missing cattle angers Redington, while his presence bothers Tut Whipple, the director of the reservoir project. Dunbar also looks into the disappearance of 17-year-old Annie Mora. Nesbitt provides fine period detail and lucid prose as Dunbar’s purpose and his target become slowly and convincingly clear. Agent: Cherry Weiner, Cherry Weiner Literary Agency. (July)