"When I'm gone the wolves will come out of their black holes and gang up on Hat. They'll be like a pack after a crippled antelope." Such was the prophecy by which Nora Parrott had inherited the mighty ranch and by which her foreman Clay Sebastian was bound. And they knew who would be the leader of the Buck DeSpain, a man whose methods were wilier than the wolf's but whose cruelty was equally ruthless. Clay knew that there would be more men dead than alive at the end of the new range war that was on its way. The decision rested with his life or his land? The author of more than seventy books, Brian Garfield is one of USA's most prolific writes of thrillers, westerns and other genre fiction. Raised in Arizona, Garfield found success at an early age, publishing his first novel when he was only eighteen - which, at the time, made him one of the youngest writers of Western novels in print. A former ranch-hand, he is a student of Western and Southwestern history, an expert on guns, and a sports car enthusiast. After time in the Army, a few years touring with a jazz band, and a Master's Degree from the University of Arizona, he settled into writing full time. Garfield is a past president of the Mystery Writers of America and the Western Writers of America, and the only author to have held both offices. Nineteen of his novels have been made into films, including Death Wish (1972), The Last Hard Men (1976) and Hopscotch (1975), for which he wrote the screenplay. To date, his novels have sold over twenty million copies worldwide. Brian Garfield died on December 29 2018. He and his wife lived in California.