The Cowgirl Murders

This is both a western and a murder mystery. In 1870 Deputy US Marshal Davy Reece postpones plans to return to his former life as a scout in order to investigate the murder of his friend and colleague, Marshal McLuhan. He has to deal with two equally eccentric but very different sheriffs and with the madame of the brothel where the marshal was killed. He learns the killer was a woman, probably a cowgirl, who may be among a largely female crew on a cattle-drive across the western plains from Wyoming to Kansas. Davy joins the drive as a scout, while his Shoshone wife and their two teenage children join as drovers, along with the marshal's widow, the Irish-American Cathy, who is determined to find her husband's killer.
Was the marshal killed because he was close to uncovering a large criminal organisation or a plot to revive the Confederacy? There are former soldiers from both sides of the Civil War as well as a few former slaves driving this herd across the prairie. Can Davy trust information he gains from captured suspects and from certain Native Americans of the Lacota tribe?
Apart from all the hazards of the trail, someone is trying to kill Davy and Cathy.
Davy fears for his family's safety, but could they play a big part in solving the murder? Will Cathy prove to be an asset or a liability?
This lighthearted book contains action, adventure, suspense, humour and surprises.