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Loading... The Maynwaringsby Digger Cartwright
None No current Talk conversations about this book.  plappen | Sep 4, 2012 |  no reviews | add a review
When United States Senator Barron Maynwaring returns to his family and his beloved ranch, the Greenbrier, much has changed in Carson City. Family friends have taken to gambling. Cattle rustlers have increased activity around the massive ranch. A mysterious stranger, Giddeon Van Thorn, has arrived in town on secretive business. A political opponent and the press have launched attacks on Barron and his family. When Dan Arkin, the Maynwarings's neighbor, is murdered, suspicion immediately turns to Jeremy Foster, a loner who had threatened Arkin after a crooked card game. When the posse led by the Maynwarings turns into a lynch mob, against their will, and Van Thorn's men hang Jeremy Foster, Barron's daughter Mary Catherine, the Carson City solicitor, launches an investigation of her own hoping to learn why the strangers wanted Foster dead.As Van Thorn attempts to buy up property in Carson City for a massive redevelopment, Barron's son, Stokes, a city councilman, attempts to block the slick businessman's plan that seems more than meets the eye. As they seek answers to Van Thorn's true intentions and dark background, the Maynwarings are stunned to learn that Jeremy Foster's brother has arrived in Carson City seeking revenge for his brother's untimely death. As bodies mount and the Maynwarings are bushwhacked, it becomes apparent that a sinister game of chance will determine the fate of the Greenbrier and the future of Carson City yet in this high stakes game of chance nothing is as it seems! No library descriptions found. |
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Wikipedia in English
1
The Maynwarings are one of the founding families in Carson City, the territory's capital. Barron, the family patriarch, is a United States Senator. They own several buildings in town, along with an immense cattle ranch outside of town.
A well-dressed stramger named Giddeon Van Thorn rides into town, and offers to purchase several businesses, including a saloon and the local mercantile, for a very generous price. Those who decline his offer have a nasty habit of ending up dead. Van Thorn says that he is part of a shadowy Association from back East, whose intention is to develop Carson City, bringing jobs and tax revenue (sound familiar?).
A neighboring rancher, Dan Arkin, is found dead, several hours after a poker game that went bad. Suspicion falls on Jeremy Foster, a recluse, and another participant in the ill-fated poker game. The Maynwarings set up a search party to ask Foster some hard questions; the circumstantial evidence against him is pretty strong. Several of Van Thron's thugs are unknowingly included in the search party. They reach Foster first, and lynch him, preventing the Maynwarings from following the law. The body count starts to rise. The local judge is in Van Thorn's pocket. Things get serious when anthrax is found in their cattle; it can wipe out an entire herd very quickly. Things get even more serious when one of Barron's sons, Houston, is shot and seriously wounded by an unknown assailant in broad daylight. Is all of this Van Thorn's fault, or is there some other explanation? Can Van Thorn's plans be stopped? Will the Maynwaring ranch survive?
The author does a very good job from start to finish. He puts the reader right in the middle of the story, and the characters feel like real people. Here is a first-rate piece of writing. (