The hundred-year saga of the Mateo-García fortunes and the men who rode at adventure to el norte. Into distant lands held sacred by the Chiricahua Apaches they came in search of the gold that would make them hombres ricos—until at last los Indios could brook no further trespass. Full of battles and animal lore, headstrong romance, revenge and retribution, it traces the story of three generations of men who dared invade the home of the Apache Rain Gods en el Cañón de la Buena Fortuna, the valley that to this day still lies in the shadows of a hat-shaped peak in those lands now known as Arizona.

The hero of our romantic narrative, or better, narratives, was a constable. Not one of that useful class appointed, in our day, to direct the vehicles which pass over the two approaches to the suspension-bridge in Budapest; rather, he was the chief of a body whose task it is to provoke disturbance, who win all the more praise and glory the greater the havoc and destruction they create. In a word: he was a gunner. The chronicle of his exploits gives only his Christian name, which was "Hugo." In the year 1688, when the French beleaguered Coblentz, Hugo had charge of the battery in the outermost tower of Ehrenbreitstein fortress—the "Montalembert Tower." Coblentz and Ehrenbreitstein are opposite one another on the banks of the Rhine, as are Pesth and Ofen; and the Blocksberg looks down on us, as does the citadel of Ehrenbreitstein on Coblentz. The city, which is strongly fortified on all sides, had become accustomed to being beleaguered—now by the French, now by the Prussians; today by the Austrians, tomorrow by the Swedes. On the occasion of which I write, Coblentz was under a terrible fire from the French guns, which created great havoc in that portion of the city known as the "Old Town."

"Originally published in 2015 by Atlantic Books, Great Britain."

Death's Head illuminates a little-known but significant moment in history, one whose outcome resonates through the years to the present day. It is a story of war and love and the faith that enables ordinary men to perform extraordinary deeds. 1190 - Saladin's armies have overrun most of the Holy Land, prompting a great crusade from the West, led by Richard the Lionheart, King Philip of France, and the German emperor, Frederick Barbarossa. Unjustly accused of murder, an idealistic young monk named Roger flees his abbey and joins the vast tide of men headed for the East. In the Holy Land, Roger finds not glory, but death and misery as he takes part in the greatest military debacle of the Middle Ages - the siege of Acre. Roger makes a name for himself in the company known as the Death's Heads, and he falls in love under the most improbable circumstances. But as the months pass, and he watches the mightiest fighting force in the history of Christendom being destroyed by battle and disease and starvation, he suffers a soul-shattering crisis of faith, wondering how God could permit His children to indulge in such madness.

As the war in Europe winds down, a unit of battle-fatigued GIs are tasked in liberating the survivors of the infamous Verurteilt concentration camp, in theory a relatively simple rescue mission. Upon arrival, Sergeant Rance Hawkins and his four young charges are ordered to search an unmapped area beyond the main camp for evidence of a separate, clandestine compound, reportedly created for high-ranking SS officers to further torment and torture. Their quest will eventually lead them into a nearby coal mine, where a young camp survivor claims that her mother and other refugees are being held. Inside the murky caverns, the motley crew of dogfaces discover revelations so terrifying and vile as to make even the inhuman atrocities of Verurteilt seem tame by comparison.

For most of the previous century forces loyal to the death-gods of Lathakra, King Cold and his triplet sister, the Scarlet Empress, have sought to replace the Head's reigning sense of hopelessness with another Golden Age, that of their own. Equally godlike devils such as the Unity of Chaos support them.