When Kentucky Jones turned up in Waterman for the inquest into the death of John Mason, he couldn't help noticing that the whole town was on the edge. Beef prices were sagging, ranchers were at each other's throats, and the ugly suspicion in every face warned him that a range war loomed in the Wolf Bench country. Then lovely Jody Ragland, looking faint and drawn, swayed toward him, thrust something into his hand, and vanished. When he looked into his palm, he was shocked by what he saw. There lay the bullet that killed John Mason.

Winner of the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award for Best First Novel and the Mountains and Plains Booksellers Award for Best Novel In Winter Range, the intimate details of ranching and small-town life are woven into the suspenseful story of three people struggling to survive, to belong, and to love in the chillingly bleak landscape of eastern Montana. Ike Parsons is a small-town sheriff whose life is stable and content; his wife Pattiann is a rancher's daughter with a secret past. But when Ike tries to help a hard-luck cattleman named Chas Stubblefield, he triggers Chas's resentment and finds his home and his wife targeted by a plot for revenge.