Cut and Branded

Three thousand prime longhorns vanish from a remote ranch—and all the trails lead north.

Detective Sam Benbow tracks the stolen herd to Dodge City, the violent end of the cattle trail and a town where disputes are settled with gunfire instead of words. Benbow has a strong hunch who’s behind the rustling—but suspicion isn’t proof, and time is running out.

With just twelve hours before the stolen cattle are loaded onto a Kansas Pacific train and gone for good, Benbow must navigate a town steeped in corruption, fear, and old grudges. The deeper he digs, the clearer it becomes that theft is only part of what’s rotting Dodge City from the inside out.

As the clock ticks down, Benbow finds himself facing a killer, a buried secret, and an unfinished score from his past. If he fails, the criminals walk free—and the truth disappears with the train.

A fast-paced Western mystery featuring a tough frontier lawman, relentless tension, and a complete stand-alone case in the Sam Benbow series.

Praise for the Westerns of Jack Curtis:

‘One of the best practitioners of the American form … Jack Curtis’s spare style and sharp eye for character will keep his books fresh well into the coming century’—Loren D. Estleman

‘Curtis pushes all the right buttons’—Western Review

‘Plenty of gunsmoke and hot lead to satisfy most aficionados of the genre’—The Capital Journal

‘A high-caliber tale of Montana revenge’—Kirkus Reviews

‘Plenty of mystery and suspense’—Wayne Barton

CUT AND BRANDED is Book 2 of the SAM BENBOW WESTERN MYSTERIES: