The Neutral Ground

In the lawless country between Louisiana and Spanish Texas, a man can disappear without leaving much behind.

Luke Boudreau has spent years living with the absence of his father, Gabriel-known to some as Lantern Gabe. Then Luke finds reason to believe Gabriel did not simply abandon his family. His trail leads west, into the Neutral Ground: a disputed strip of wilderness claimed by no government and ruled by outlaws, fugitives, traders, killers, and those desperate enough to begin again.

Luke follows his father's trail into that country, looking for answers.

What begins as a search for Gabriel becomes something far more dangerous. His father left behind whispers, a mysterious map, and traces of a life Luke never knew he lived. Somewhere in the Neutral Ground is Silas Varn, a man who may know what happened to Gabriel-and why.

But Luke is not the only man searching for Silas.

Julian St. Cyr, a feared bounty hunter with reasons of his own for entering the Neutral Ground, is closing in. As their paths converge, Luke discovers that the wilderness is hiding more than criminals. People are moving through it unseen. Old debts have followed men across borders. And the truth about Gabriel Boudreau is bound to choices involving freedom, loyalty, violence, and the price of doing what a man believes is right.

Set in the dangerous borderlands of the early nineteenth century, The Neutral Ground is a story of fathers and sons, hunters and hunted, and people trying to find a place beyond the reach of the world they left behind.

Some men enter the Neutral Ground to disappear.

Others enter it to discover who they are.