The Maynwarings

Book excerpt: When United States Senator Barron Maynwaring returns to his family and his beloved ranch, the Greenbrier, much has changed in Carson City. Family friends have taken to gambling. Cattle rustlers have increased activity around the massive ranch. A mysterious stranger, Giddeon Van Thorn, has arrived in town on secretive business. A political opponent and the press have launched attacks on Barron and his family. When Dan Arkin, the Maynwarings’s neighbor, is murdered, suspicion immediately turns to Jeremy Foster, a loner who had threatened Arkin after a crooked card game. When the posse led by the Maynwarings turns into a lynch mob, against their will, and Van Thorn’s men hang Jeremy Foster, Barron’s daughter Mary Catherine, the Carson City solicitor, launches an investigation of her own hoping to learn why the strangers wanted Foster dead. As Van Thorn attempts to buy up property in Carson City for a massive redevelopment, Barron’s son, Stokes, a city councilman, attempts to block the slick businessman’s plan that seems more than meets the eye. As they seek answers to Van Thorn’s true intentions and dark background, the Maynwarings are stunned to learn that Jeremy Foster’s brother has arrived in Carson City seeking revenge for his brother’s untimely death. As bodies mount and the Maynwarings are bushwhacked, it becomes apparent that a sinister game of chance will determine the fate of the Greenbrier and the future of Carson City... yet in this high stakes game of chance nothing is as it seems!