The Cassidy Posse
In the spring of 1892, tough Chicago detective Mike McGhan is sent west to bring back an escaped fugitive who is accused of killing the wife of a prominent politician. On the long train ride he beings to wonder how a seemingly naïve young man like Sean Daugherty had the savvy to escape from the Cook County jail.
When McGhan arrives in Wyoming, he finds himself in the middle of a range war and enlists Butch Cassidy to take him into the outlaw hideout known as the "Hole-in-the-Wall."
His makeshift posse succeeds in capturing Daugherty, but getting him back to Illinois is an even bigger challenge. It's Illinois politics meet the wild west.
The idea for this book, the Cassidy Posse, grew from an idea that germinated many years ago. My grandfather was a Ferrier in the U. S. Cavalry in Kansas and Arizona at the turn of the century. He lived for western lore and somewhere in my youth told me that a Marshall Hank Bedeker was one of the lawmen that to Butch Cassidy to prison in 1894.
When I started doing research for this book, I discovered a Chicago Tribune Article dated July 6, 1902 that claimed that George Parker and Harry Longbaugh robbed a train just outside Chicago. Strangely, neither one were indicated by their aliases: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Stranger yet, the outlaw duo had a gun battle with a farmer in Tinley Park while trying to steal two of his horses.
In 1902, the popular notion was that the famous outlaws had escaped to South America. What would bring them back to Chicago, Illinois? From here the book started forming in my head and practically wrote itself.
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