Tender Valley is a clean, friendly and law-abiding frontier town. In fact, it is such a fine town that an enterprising businessman might just designate it as the official Finest Frontier Town in the West, an award with a thousand-dollar prize.

New Utopia isn't as fine as Tender Valley, but the townsfolk there are desperate to win the award, and they're prepared to go to any lengths to succeed. So they hire gunslingers to shoot up Tender Valley and destroy that town's reputation forever.

In peaceful Tender Valley, the townsfolk are ill equipped to withstand the gunslingers' onslaught. They need a hero to ride into town, strap on a gun, and stand tall before their tormentors.

But the next man to ride into town is Fergal O'Brien, purveyor of a singularly unsuccessful "universal remedy."

He's no hero. But for the right price--he does have a plan.

I .J. Parnham was born in Nottingham, England. For most of his working life, he has been an accountant. He now lives a long way from the Wild West in the misty glens and castle-strewn moors of the northeast of Scotland with his wife, Audrey, and far too many cats.