Bass Reeves Trilogy

Follow the Angels, Follow the Doves is an origin story in the true American tradition. Before Bass Reeves could stake his claim as the most successful nineteenth-century American lawman, arresting more outlaws than any other deputy during his thirty-two-year career as a deputy US marshal in some of the most dangerous regions of the Wild West, he was a slave. After a childhood picking cotton, Reeves became an expert marksman under his master's tutelage, winning shooting contests throughout the region. His skill had serious implications, however, as the Civil War broke out. Reeves was given to his master's mercurial, sadistic, Moby-Dick-quoting son in the hopes that Reeves would keep him safe in battle. The ensuing humiliation, love, heroics, war, mind games, and fear solidified Reeves's determination to gain his freedom and drew him one step further on his fated path to an illustrious career. Follow the Angels, Follow the Doves is an important historical work that places Reeves in the pantheon of American heroes and a thrilling historical novel that narrates a great man's exploits amid the near-mythic world of the nineteenth-century frontier.

2022 Oklahoma Book Awards Finalist for fiction from the Oklahoma Center for the Book 2021 National Indie Excellence Awards Finalist for western fiction 2021 American Book Fest Award Finalist for historical fiction Set in 1884, Hell on the Border tells the story of Deputy US Marshal Bass Reeves at the peak of his historic career. Famous for being a crack shot as well as for his nonviolent tendencies, Reeves uses his African American race to his strategic advantage. Along with a tramp or cowboy disguise, Reeves appears so nonthreatening that he often positions himself close enough to the outlaws he is pursuing to arrest them without bloodshed. After a series of heroic feats of capturing and killing infamous outlaws-most notably Jim Webb-and an introduction to Belle Starr, Reeves finds himself in the Fort Smith jail, charged with murder. This second book in the Bass Reeves Trilogy investigates what really happened when Reeves made the greatest mistake of his life on the heels of his greatest achievements.