1890. Lieutenant Gabriel Stokes of the British Army has left behind the horrors of war in Afghanistan for a role in the Metropolitan Police.
Though he’s risen quickly through the ranks, the squalid violence of London’s East End proves just as dark and oppressive as the battlefield.
With his life falling apart, and longing for peace and meaning, Gabriel leaves the grime of London behind and heads for the wilderness and wide open spaces of the American West.
He soon realises that the wilds of Oregon are far from the idyll he has yearned for.
The Blue Mountains may be beautiful, but with the frontier a complex patchwork of feuds and felonies, and ranchers as vicious as any back alley cut-throat in London, Gabriel finds himself unable to escape his past and the demons that drive him.
Can he find a place for himself on the far edge of the New World?
Dark Frontier by Matthew Harffy is published on 4 July, 2024.
Matthew’s written a feature about why he’s written a Western and where his inspiration came from.
You’ll find more reading ideas in our list of over 180 historical books coming out this year.
