WINNER OF THE 2025 SPUR AWARD FOR BEST HISTORICAL WESTERN NOVEL
Inspired by the shocking true story of the Gunfight at Hide Park, this blazing standalone novel by one of today's most popular and respected Western writers, Johnny D. Boggs, takes readers back to that fateful summer in 1871—when Newton, Kansas, became “the wickedest town in the west” . . .
A decade before the legendary Gunfight at OK Corral, there was a much bloodier showdown with a much bigger body count—and Wichita Herald reporter Cindy Bagwell was there to see it all. At first, the fledgling journalist had no idea why her boss would send her to what hardly even passes for a town. But Texans, including trail boss Gary Hardee and his sons, are bringing longhorns to Kansas. And Newton aims to take over the cattle market. Hardee has his hands full—and that’s before he reaches Newton, where Texans and Kansans don’t get along. Tensions escalate from fisticuffs to brawling to fatal shootings in short order. But that’s just a warm-up. On August 19, 1871, in a gambling room at Tuttle’s dance hall in Hide Park, this powder keg of bad blood and bitterness between two rival groups explodes—with one young reporter, a restaurant owner, and Hardee’s sons caught in the middle . . .
This is the story of the deadliest gunfight in the American West. Of the passionate men and women who fought for a piece of the American Dream. And of the ultimate price they’d have to pay . . .
“Boggs is unparalleled in evoking the gritty reality of the Old West.” —The Shootist
“Johnny D. Boggs tells a crisply powerful story that rings true more than two centuries after the bloody business was done.” —The Charleston (S.C.) Post and Courier on The Despoilers
