The American West in the early 1960s appears to be a pastoral paradise: golden wheat fields, mist-filled canyons, frolicking animals. Aspiring novelist Aaron Holland Broussard has observed it from the open door of a boxcar, riding the rails for both inspiration and odd jobs. Jumping off in Denver, he finds work on a farm and meets Joanne McDuffy, an articulate and fierce college student and gifted painter. Their soul connection is immediate, but their...

After the sudden death of his wife, a struggling homesteader on the western frontier finds the strength to raise his daughter with the help of his parents.

The author profiles serial killer Keith Hunter Jesperson, the "Happy Face Killer" from Oregon who strangled eight women in the 1990s, detailing his evolution from angry child to psychotic murderer.