LIFE, NOT DEATH, DROVE JUBAL YOUNG . . . but memories of his ma and pa, and his beautiful, bright sister are all he has left. Memories of the peaceful days before Jubal stumbled home with his .22, his blood running cold with fear, terror, and anger. When it was over, the homestead was half burned to the ground. Someone had to bury the bodies. Someone had to set things right.
Now, as Jubal rides west into New Mexico, he remembers his familyโs laughter and love, his paโs wisdom, maโs thick books, and everything that was defiled by a band of drunken renegades towed along by one manโs murderous grudge. A reprobate lawman wonโt believe his story. A soft-hearted mountain man wonโt survive Jubalโs one-man war. And a judge and his beautiful daughter cannot stop Jubal from climbing a peak of blood and madness: for justice, or payback, or something he can live forโor die forโredeeming.
An American film icon delivers a great American novel with Payback at Morning Peak. Gene Hackman, whose fiction is โrousingโ (Publishers Weekly) and โrobustโ (Winston-Salem Journal), takes readers on a powerful and historically dead-on western odyssey in the tradition of Louis LโAmour.