Midnight Marauder

Meet John Crudder. A new kind of hero. He's not the biggest, fastest, meanest, or quickest. But he's smart and deadly. And he has a gut-level drive to see justice served. The most unlikely person to ever be called on to be the marshal of a Texas town, John Crudder finds out the town council is composed of thieves and murderers. The only way to stop them is to take to the shadows to fight them. If they find out who he is, they will hurt the people he loves. So this unassuming youngster from the East becomes the Midnight Marauder to clean up a town before the corrupt leaders destroy it.

John Crudder is an ordinary 25-year-old law school graduate looking for work in the Old West. What he finds instead is the love of 18-year-old Charlotte and the reality that he cannot have her without placing her in mortal danger. Raised to privilege, Crudder finds life as a cowhand, and later as a marshal, satisfying. Rather than being about to live that simple life, he finds himself thrust into the role of Midnight Marauder. Unless he stands up for those who have no voice, more lives will be lost, and an entire town will be wiped out.

Driven from his home to protect his loved ones from retaliation from the town council of Bandera, Texas, John Crudder becomes a vagabond. As he moves across the state, each place he stops he sees injustice, and so continues his role as the Midnight Marauder. In Huntsville, he finds cruelty worse than anything he has previously seen. And the man responsible escapes justice for murder and lives beyond the reach of the law. Crudder’s stand against such evil is the only way he can get the scales of justice to balance.

John Crudder is back as the Midnight Marauder, this time facing his greatest challenge to rescue Charlotte Hanson, the woman he loves. She has been kidnapped to force her father to sell the H&F Ranch. Only the Midnight Marauder can save her, and so far, his efforts have proved unsuccessful. 

John's mission takes him to his boyhood home of New York City and then into the executive mansion in Washington, DC. Crudder learns the president wants him to find the people responsible for the most devastating financial crisis the country has ever faced. John finds these enemies of the country are also personal enemies of his. And they hurt one of the people most important to him.

What would you do if a teenager showed up and said he was your son? Slim Hanson is in for the shock of his life when 15-year-old Richie comes calling. His mother, Marie, who was Hanson’s true love after the death of his first wife, has just been murdered.  

An evil band of outlaws move from town to town preying on the helpless. They target elderly people and single women. They have robbed and murdered with impunity. The gang has also stolen from churches, killed a priest, and two ministers. Towns are terrified. No one wants to go up against them.  

Little Charley Ross was abducted in front of his home in Philadelphia. It was the first kidnapping for ransom in the United States. This historical event is central to this Midnight Marauder adventure. John Crudder is once again summoned to Washington DC by the President. He is commissioned as a special agent to the president to find the kidnapped boy. The Midnight Marauder’s help is needed to solve the kidnapping and hopefully recover the boy. This historical novel closely follows the facts of that case.