Lost Gold: A Western Duo

by Willis Todhunter Ballard

A Spur Award-winning author In "The Dragon Was a Lady," Faith Thorndike inherits a gold mine and mansion from her father who she hasn't seen for a number of years. She arrives in Goat Springs, on the eastern edge of Death Valley, and finds herself in the midst of turmoil. Lazarus Howe, attorney for the estate, wants to be her champion. He proposes marriage, and Faith, desperate, accepts him. In "Lost Gold" a wagon load of high-grade placer gold was abandoned and hidden in a ca?on in the Superstition Mountains by Mary Thorne's grandfather after an Apache Indian attack. Mary Thorne has a map of the location, but only she knows where the gold was actually hidden in the ca?on. She hires a dangerous gang to help her locate the cache. With problems arising with the group's leader, she has to form alliances with members of the gang, always a dangerous strategy. As they head into the Superstitions, they find that the Apaches know where they are, adding still more tension to the quest. Todhunter Ballard was a major contributor of hardboiled detective fiction to Black Mask Magazine. Ballard also wrote Western stories in the same style, two of the best of which are collected here for the first time.

238 pages, Hardcover

First published March 2, 2006

Reviews

[D. E. · Rating 5 out of 5]

A TB. Double Western Action Adventures (LG -1) (LG - 2)

TB. has penned a double western action adventures titled, Lost Gold (1) and Lost Gold (2) which begins with LG (1) a novel about a mining town were he big mine peters out and the town begins the slow death march as people leave for the next gold discovery. In the second novel LG (2) a woman hires men to help her find her fathers gold. The men and woman face the dangers if thedesert and Indians to boot. The search begins for the gold which is hard to find until they realize where the gold might be. These are two novels that are good reads for the genre.....DEHS