“...a solid, well-told western tale with nicely drawn characters and plenty of action.”

— Wes Lukosky, Booklist, October 15, 2005

Despite the war around him, Josh Miles refuses to take sides. Neither he, nor any of his acquaintances own slaves, so as far as he is concerned, the War of Succession is a fight between fools and thieves.

Fate steps in when his childhood chum, Zeke Tanner, turns up traitor, the Copperhead, and wearing the blue of the union, murders of the old man Josh looked upon as a father to steal a shipment of gold bound for the Siege of Galveston.

Now the war is personal. Josh and his sidekick, Leeboy Strauss, pursue Zeke and his patrol through Comanche territory until confronting his old friend in a shootout, a shootout in which Josh and Zeke must fight together against a band of marauding Apache, Comanche, and Kiowa in an attack that ends in tragedy.

Kent Conwell grew up in the wide-open Texas Panhandle in the town of Wheeler, population 848. The West was an integral part of his life. Reading and writing came naturally to him for the desolation of the Panhandle offered little more than school and work.

A quest for adventure had been woven into his life by his grandfather, who had run away from his Tennessee home when he was 14. He bull-whacked his way to the Panhandle where he met his future wife, a young woman who had traveled from Illinois to Texas.

After moving to Fort Worth where Kent was more at home at the stockyards than school, he earned a B.S. and began teaching. Later, he moved to Port Neches where he acquired a M.Ed. and Ph.D. A successful educator, his love for writing about the West, a period in history unique to America, has never waned.

Kent has won awards for short stories, screenplays, mysteries and westerns.

Palo Duro Shootout is Kent’s twenty-third western for AVALON. In addition, Kent has also written five mysteries for AVALON.