The Winter Family

Book excerpt: After being court-martialed for their actions during the Civil War, a band of hardened Union soldiers recast themselves as outlaws. Among these twisted men who’ve found brotherhood in battle are a psychopathic killer, a mean, moronic pair of brothers, an impassive ex-slave, a dangerous child prodigy and, at the malevolent center, their cold, stoic leader: Augustus Winter, a man with an almost pathological resistance to society's rules and a preternatural gift for butchery that is matched only by his eerie charisma. From political thuggery during a Chicago election to work as bounty hunters in the deserts of Arizona, Winter and his crew follow a grim, borderland morality that plays out, time and again, in ruthless carnage.