The Judas Tree (Luke Starbuck Novels)

Some men were digging for gold. Some men were digging graves. And someone was getting away with murder...

You went through a rugged paradise to reach Virginia City, Montana. Then you came to hell: a ramshackle town where fifty-six men have been killed, dozens of stagecoaches have been robbed, and a fanatical vigilante leader is threatening to blow the town sky-high. In Denver, Luke Starbuck was hired to stop the epidemic. But when he gets to Virginia City, he finds a tough sheriff already hanging outlaws as fast as he can, a mystery swirling around a young woman's murder, and a whole lot of people with blood on their hands. Working undercover with the help of a beautiful stage star, Starbuck soon discovers that the chaos of Virginia City is really a well-oiled and murderous crime machine. To take it apart, the West's most legendary detective has to find the Judas lurking behind every violent crime-and then he has to kill him...