Illinois! (Wagons West #18)

Railroads & stockyards brought brawny bareheaded men to Chicago from the Western prairies & the northern forests. Here waited the commerce that built empires the painted women who lured farm boys, the gunman, & the cardsharp who settled their arguments w/ a Colt .45. Here was the American dream of limitless opportunity... and an age-old nightmare of greed & danger.

ILLINOIS! To America's great cities came the visionary immigrant & the ambitious native; to Chicago came brave, broad-shouldered men willing to shovel, break, & build. Among them was the famous rough rider Toby Holt - son of legendary wagon-master Whip Holt - w/ a daring plan for a new dynasty. But even while he turned his strength to constructing the future, Holt's raucous past reshaped his life - as an old enemy & an old love brought upheaval& sudden death to this raw, blustery town. And on the fateful day of October 8, 1871, a new test of Toby Holt's courage would pit him against one of the nation's most awesome catastrophes ... while on distant shores, Europe's bloody wars become another crucible of America's fate & a young officer's infidelity - as passions meet, ignite, & explode in ILLINOIS!