The Vigilante Series of Books

“When I wrote God’s Thunderbolt: The Vigilantes of Montana, I had no thought of writing more than one book about this early period in Montana’s history, which coincides with the Civil War. The more I’ve learned about it, the more stories I find to tell about our pioneers and the hardships they conquered through pure grit, hard work, and faith.” Carol Buchanan

The Vigilante Series Novels are listed below in the Series’ chronological order of historic occurrence.

• God’s Thunderbolt – December 1863 – January 1864
• The Devil in the Bottle – March 8, 9, & 10, 1864
• Gold Under Ice – between May and September 1864
• The Ghost at Beaverhead Rock – November 1864 – January 1865
• A Time of Trial Between January – April 1865

Each book in the series is available through Amazon in paperback, and on Kindle.

Please click on the book covers listed below to purchase the book from Amazon.

Ruffians rule and murder is tolerated in the Alder Gulch gold fields during the winter of 1863-1864. Daniel Stark, lawyer and abolitionist, fears he will not survive to take his gold home to New York and redeem his family from the disgrace of his father’s embezzlement and suicide.
 
When a friend is murdered, Dan prosecutes the suspect, whose five lawyers are Confederates. When the trial reveals a widespread criminal conspiracy, Dan joins Union and Confederate sympathizers united in a determination to establish law and order where there is no code of law nor reliable law enforcement. Going against everything in his training and personal beliefs, Dan helps to form a Vigilance Committee and serve as its prosecutor. Then he faces the horrible prospect of hanging the husband of the woman he loves.
 
God’s Thunderbolt won the 2009 Spur winner for Best First Novel from the Western Writers of America.

Reviews:
Publisher’s Weekly: “…an excellent western with an intense moral gravity.â€
Amazon Vine Review: “…history is brought alive with fine description and sensory detail.â€
Roundup Magazine: “…the finest novel of the vigilante era ever written. … haunting and searing.â€

After Vigilantes ended a criminal conspiracy in Alder Gulch during the winter of 1863-1864, they founded a “People’s Court†to administer justice. At the same time, the notorious Joseph (aka ‘Jack’) Slade, who once ruled 600 hostile miles of the Overland Stage Line, has settled near Virginia City with his wife and adopted son. Although he controlled his district with a reputation for violence and intimidation, Overland passengers and the mail traveled on time, in safety. But Slade’s binge drinking wrecked his career when he and his men destroyed Army supplies at Fort Halleck.

In Virginia City, he and his friends continue their drunken rampages, despite his more sober friends attempts to persuade him to stop. Dan Stark, the Vigilante prosecutor, is one of his friends. Dan thinks there’s a devil in the bottle for Slade, a devil who wants him to die. He worries that someone could be killed when Slade, the man who also destroyed Denver, Colorado, “takes the town.”

In March 1864, on a binge, despite his friends’ pleading for days, Slade will not go home. The Vigilantes swear out a warrant for his arrest, but instead of respecting his good friend, the judge of the People’s Court, Slade holds a gun to His Honor’s head and tells the Vigilantes they are “all played out.†By that one act, Slade rules. The Vigilantes must give up control of the region, or do the unthinkable, for the town has no jail. Without it, they have only one sure way of ending Slade’s sprees. Hanging him. Yet he has committed no capital crime to justify it. Will the devil in the bottle get Jack Slade?

America teeters on the brink of change. It’s 1864, and the Civil War seems all but lost to the Confederacy. To finance the Union war effort, the Lincoln Administration passes the Legal Tender act, creating government issued paper money – the greenback. African Americans are experiencing freedom of choice as slavery retreats from the land.
 
After Daniel Stark’s father gambled away his own money and his law firm’s funds, and committed suicide, Dan’s grandfather sent him West to the Montana gold fields to get enough gold to redeem the family’s fortunes and honor. Now an emissary has come to take him back to New York.
 
Dan does not have enough gold to pay off the entire debt. And he fights against leaving his common-law wife, Martha. Arriving in New York, Dan fights his grandfather who wants him to stay in the city and work in the law firm he founded.
 
When Dan is badly injured in a fight to save his gold, he searches out the plot behind the attack. He discovers it began too close to home.
 
Gold Under Ice was a Finalist for the 2012 Spur from Western Writers of America.
 

Ruffians ruled and murder was tolerated in Alder Gulch, Montana Territory, during 1863 until the Montana Vigilantes established peace and enforced the rule of law. But a year later peace has not come to Daniel Stark, attorney and Vigilante prosecutor. He is accused of murdering his wife’s first husband. If he cannot find the true killer, he could well be on trial for his life.
 
Establishing a formal legal system, the Chief Justice of Montana Territory’s new Supreme Court warns the Vigilantes, “No more midnight executions.†Nonetheless, Dan knows that they could decide to try him secretly in the Vigilante tribunal, where the only sentence is death. As he searches for the murderer, the ghost of a hanged man haunts him. Is it a vision of his fate to come? Is it retribution?
 
“Dan tells himself, I do not believe in ghosts. The Ghost at Beaverhead Rock is the fourth book in the Montana Vigilante series by Spur-Award-Winning author Carol Buchanan. Together, God’s Thunderbolt, The Devil in the Bottle, Gold Under Ice, and the Ghost At Beaverhead Rock – joined by the series’ fifth book, A Time of Trial (see below) – tell the story of Dan Stark and the Vigilantes of Montana.â€
 
Kirkus Reviews/Indie: “Stark is a compelling, complicated hero, one of several finely drawn characters who bring the Old West to life.â€

Available now from Amazon.com! A Time of Trial is Book 5 in the Montana Vigilante Series.

January 1865. Lawyer and Vigilante Daniel stark, a Union supporter, fights a legal battle to save the “Nugget,†the gold mine inherited by his wife and stepchildren, from a hostile takeover by Tobias Fitch.

Fitch is both a veteran of a Confederate army, and a Vigilante. Furious at reported Southern losses in the War Between the States, he focuses his anger on Dan and the Nugget. Fitch believes the mine holds the Mother Lode, the source of all gold in Montana Territory. When he kidnaps Dan’s infant son to force him to hand over the mine, their battle becomes a war. A war to save Dan’s child.