The Lawless — John Jakes

The glittering saga of our America -- and the people who made her great.

Postwar prosperity had transformed the nation. The Kents were thrust into the daring occupations of our country's most reckless and corrupt era...feverish speculation in the east...the cattle boom in the west...rip-roaring Abilene and Deadwood...

Against this wild American landscape the Kent men and women played out their turbulent destinies, and struggled to rebuild a shattered empire in the land of THE LAWLESS.

The disreputable Louis Kent has died in ruin. Jephtha Kent's vow to reunite his family has fallen to his son Gideon. But when Gideon draws Louis's widow, the fiery Julia, back into the fold, he fans the embers of illicit romance that will inflame the Kents for generations to come.