Maker of Angels

by Dean Sault

Greed fuels the California Gold Rush. Colton Minar, a young journalist, heads from Boston to Sacramento to report the truth about gold fever. Soon, the deadly, unspoken codes of the West change his life forever.

During Cole’s travel, a striking redhead and owner of the Empty Nest brothel seduces the young greenhorn. Miss Nelly, however, is not her real name. It’s Tess Winslow, the deadliest lady gunfighter in the country, wanted for three murders. When he spurns her love to continue his journey, the ruthless killer hires assassins to hunt him down.

Cole meets Indian, Kaga Ishta, along the Santa Fe Trail when she saves his life after a rattlesnake bite. She doesn’t trust white men, but reluctantly agrees to guide him along secret trails over the mountains to his destination. He learns ways of the wilderness from Kaga, and initial distrust grows into epic love—a forbidden love in the Old West.

Violence in gold country forces Colton to become good with a gun, but he’s more than good, he’s the best. Local newspapers dub him Maker of Angels as he wins against all challengers. Even Tess’s paid gunmen are no match. What happens when love, hatred and the two fastest gunfighters in the country collide? And, Kaga is at the center.

289 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 28, 2013

About the author

Author Dean Sault lives in Northern California with his wife and her menagerie of pets. Every day for the past thirty-five years, he could not wait to shut down his insurance office, so he could spend time with his family, go fishing, or retreat into his private world of writing fictional places and people. His novels accumulated in folders, file cabinets and clipboards, while waiting for that special moment when he could burst onto the world of literature.

In 2007, severe vertigo took away Sault's beloved avocation of bass fishing and writing for Inside Line magazine. Sault refused to let vertigo stand in the way of his love of writing. He decided to dust off his stories and share his literary creations with the world.

He began by publishing his science fiction space opera, The Last Human War. This was the first step of his literary journey. He loved meeting with fans and discussing the complex worlds he created, so he dug into his pile of manuscripts and began offering them to agents. A New York agent quickly picked up his thriller, Jihad: the Breath of God, and so it began. His stories screamed for attention, and a flood of novels began rising to the surface.

After twenty years of writing in the dark, Sault was ready to step out and share his work with the world! He says, "2013 will be the year my readers experience a diversity of genres I've kept hidden from the world. From sci-fi to western romance, some with paranormal elements, this will be an exciting year."

Sault brings his unique writing style to every story he creates. With crisp, fast-paced prose, he employs Hemingway-like simplicity as he weaves complex characters into fascinating worlds. Readers often comment that once begun, they cannot put his books down. "I learned this skill, believe it or not, from writing bass fishing articles and columns for Inside Line magazine during the time when I chased professional fishing and guiding," Sault says. "In fact, many of the stories we are making available to readers today, found their beginnings in dusty motel rooms, late at night, while at distant bass tournaments."

This breakout author shows promise to be one of the great writers of our time. From action-adventure to terror in his thrillers, his masterful handling of fast-paced prose compares with great writers like Tom Clancy and HG Wells. His western-romances share the strong pacing, but they slow at just the right moments to build touching love connections that tug at the readers' heartstrings.