Life couldn't be worse for archaeology grad student Jim Hunt. Having lost his funding at a major midwestern university, and his partner, he desperately needs a breakthrough to revitalize his work and his life. Could a summer dig in map-dot Lyons, Kansas, jumpstart his fledgling career? Out of options, he packs his bags.
Five hundred years earlier, Spanish conquistador Francisco Vasquez de Coronado faces a desperate journey of his own through New World terrain. He must find the legendary golden city of Quivira. But can he trust the mysterious "Turk," his Indian guide?
Jim and Coronado's stories interweave in "The Dig," intersecting at a fateful point.
Things don't improve for Jim with his first steps in Lyons--and his trespass upon an ancient mausoleum. His curiosity angers the locals--including Eva, a striking but no-nonsense museum worker Jim is instantly drawn to. A local tough, Mitch Keeper--enforcer for a reclusive, wealthy landowner--seems to go out of his way to harass Jim. The sheriff thinks nothing of throwing him in jail. And then the seemingly innocuous dig turns deadly.
It's not much better for the conquistador. After days of wandering through dusty lands with no food or water, Coronado and his men are dying. Still, the Turk beckons them on. To continue means death. But to return empty-handed is equally unbearable . . .
Sheldon Russell ratchets the tension and mystery in both narratives as Jim and Coronado close in on--or are eluded by--what they seek. Along the way, the author's research and craftsmanship shine through. Coronado's carefully rendered, formal speech contrasts with the casual dialogue authentic to the plains today. Even minor characters, from Stufflebaum, Lyons's prankster taxidermist, to the inscrutable Turk leap from the page. A historical fiction thrill ride that builds to an Indiana Jones-style standoff, "The Dig" forces its characters--and readers--to grapple with an age-old proverb: all that glitters is not gold.

Railroad bull Hook Runyon and his dog, Mixer, are chasing persistent pickpockets on the Santa Fe line, when Hook is called to investigate a malfunctioning wigwag signal in the middle of nowhere. A young man has been strung up there, hung from the signal, and left strangled to death.

Near the end of WWII, Hook Runyon, railroad bull, and his dog, Mixer, are sent to the West Salvage Yard in the desert of Arizona. Not far away is the Johnson Canyon Tunnel. So vital is the tunnel to the war effort that a 24-hour military guard has been assigned. Things soon go awry when a guard is killed mid-tunnel by a train.

After a devastating fire at an insane asylum in California, Hook Runyan has been put in charge of security for a train that is to transport the survivors to a new destination. Hook hires a motley crew of World War II veterans to help, but things soon go awry.

In this period mystery set in 1940s Oklahoma, railroad special agent Hook Runyon uncovers a Nazi plot to sell stolen 'degenerate art' in America.

On a fateful day in 1889, the Oklahoma land rush begins, and for thousands of settlers the future is up for grabs. One of those people is Creed McReynolds, fresh from the East with a lawyer's education and a head full of aspirations. The mixed-blood son of a Kiowa mother and a U.S. Cavalry doctor, Creed lands in Guthrie station, the designated Territorial Capital, where he must prove that he is more than the half-blood kid once driven from his own land.

In recounting the precipitous rise and catastrophic fall of the jerrybuilt city of Guthrie, author Sheldon Russell immerses us in the lives of Creed and other memorable characters whose ambitions echo the taming of the frontier--and whose fates hold lessons as important today as they were more than a hundred years ago.

Among the people McReynolds must contend with is Abaddon Damon. A ruthless newspaper publisher, Abaddon is quick to strike any bargain that will bring him the power he craves, and like many others, Creed McReynolds is swept into his whirlwind of greed and deception. Creed becomes the wealthiest man in the Territory--but at an unbearable cost to himself, the dreams of others, and the dignity of his mother's people.

"Dreams to Dust" takes readers back to the early days of Oklahoma Territory--a sometimes dangerous place filled with nefarious dealings, where violence lurks behind even casual encounters--to tell the story of frontier men and women gambling everything to find their fortune on the windswept southern plains.