The Legend of Savage (Savage Legacy Book 2)

A badge can give a man authority. It can’t give him judgment.

Five years after the events of The Law of Savage, John Savage has built a life in Blackstone. He is a husband, a father, an American citizen—and, at last, a Deputy United States Marshal.

Unfortunately, Blackstone has already decided he is something more.

Thanks in no small part to Thomas Keene’s wildly exaggerated dime novels, stories of “Marshal Savage” have spread across the frontier. To John’s considerable annoyance, people now expect the legendary gunfighter of the books: a fearless lawman who never misses, never hesitates, and always knows exactly what justice requires.

The real John Savage knows better.

When a cattle-rustling operation leads to stolen dynamite, a bank robbery, a stampede through town, and a dangerous trail stretching across county lines, John finds himself caught between the law he serves and the legend others have created around him. Alongside Sheriff Nathaniel Rusk, tracker Kosa, his formidable wife Tempest, and the ever-watchful Loki, John must stop men who are increasingly willing to use his reputation against him.

But bullets and outlaws are only part of the danger.

A hired gun wants the duel everyone expects. An impostor discovers the Savage name is valuable enough to steal. Angry citizens begin invoking “Savage justice” to excuse violence John would never condone. And Thomas Keene is forced to confront what happens when entertaining stories become more powerful than the truth.

John can arrest criminals.

He can correct the newspapers.

He can even insist—repeatedly—that there is no court.

What he cannot control is what people choose to believe.

The Legend of Savage is the second novel in the Savage Legacy, a character-driven Western adventure filled with gunfights, cattle drives, frontier law, dry humor, family, and the continuing story of the man behind the Savage name.

For John Savage, becoming a legend was never the goal.

Living up to one may be the harder fight.