Tucker's Odyssey

Tucker Elsworth is the step-son of Cass, the sole surviving son of Joshua - who took his entire clan west seeking greener pastures (in Joshua's Jericho), only to run into a maelstrom of death and misery. In the beginning of Tucker's Odyssey Tuck is twelve years old, and he foolishly gets into a few scrapes with the law. Then, when Cass is killed, Tuck and his mother are forced to relocate to New Orleans, where they live with a distant cousin and her husband, the wealthy, silky-smooth but moody Johnny Natali. Johnny is a successful businessman, but he is much more... his connections in large-scale bootlegging and the Mafia stretch all up and down the eastern seaboard.

Johnny Natali takes young Tuck under his wing, and the boy learns much Рbut a great deal of what he learns distresses Sara, Tuck's mother. They now live in seductive luxury, however, so she goes along, and Tuck himself quickly learns what has upset his mother: the details of where all Johnny's money comes from. When Johnny Natali is killed by an old enemy, in vendetta, Tuck assumes they will be out in the cold, but then they discover that Johnny had made arrangements before his assassination that would ensure the comfort of his prot̩g̩ for the rest of his life. He purchases the ranch in Colorado on which Tuck spent his early years while Cass was foreman. So Tucker returns home with his mother and a new bride. He becomes a successful cattle rancher and raises three sons, each of whom has a tale to tell (future novels), and each one named for the three men who influenced Tuck's life the most: Edward, Cass and Johnny. His Odyssey is complete.