A talented healer forced to become a fugitive for a killing he wasn't responsible for, Jake Horn found sanctuary in the rough Dakota town of Sweet Sorrow -- and in the tin badge that marks him as the local law. Now his discovery of a dead ranch hand is bringing his demons home.

As a doctor and a sheriff, Jake's witnessed death in all its dark guises -- and he recognizes a murder when he sees one. But asking too many questions of the wrong people is asking for trouble, and suddenly expert killers are gathering with their sights on a lawman who's got a need to see justice done. The big gundown is coming, as relentlessly as the winter snow whipping across the prairie. And there's nowhere for a good man to hide when five shooters blinded by hate won't leave Sweet Sorrow until he's dead.