In Praise of Gentle People

Book excerpt: Two intriguing murder mysteries in one. Lawrence Treman, the son of a wealthy British barrister, is sent by his father to a ranch in Kansas to 'toughen him up'. Lawrence reluctantly obeys his father's wishes under the threat of losing his inheritance, but is aggrieved to leave behind the love of his life, Estelle Lavine. The year is 1874 and the Civil War in America has long since finished, but not the day of the gunman in the untamed West. During his stay on the ranch, a number of cowboys are butchered under mysterious circumstances. The owner calls in an agent from the Pinkerton Detective Agency to try and solve the mystery. Lawrence falls under immediate suspicion because the killings did not start until he arrived at the ranch. As if that is not enough, detectives from Scotland Yard are called in to investigate a series of murders in Hertfordshire, Lawrence's home county in England. When the bodies are discovered on his father's estate, Lawrence again falls under suspicion there, the police accusing his father of sending him away to the Americas to avoid the clutches of the police. He is ordered to return to Britain by his father to answer the charges facing him there, but is shocked to learn that this will not be possible as his son is due to be hung in Kansas for the murder of the cowboys. In the meantime Estelle, the love of Lawrence's life, is being forced against her will to marry someone else.... Can Lawrence escape the hangman in the States and face the music back home? A taut thriller from the pen of Alex Binney.