Phoenix investigative reporter Joya Bonner knew nothing about the world of sex trafficking-or the ugly status her city held in this filthy underground.
But then her 15 year-old honorary niece went missing in Phoenix. And a 13 year-old from her hometown in North Dakota disappeared. And there was that pitiful dead girl in the vacant lot. As Joya rushed in to help-naive, scared, repulsed, frantic, but determined-her world would never be the same again.
This is a work of fiction. The major characters are created from the author's imagination-with the exception of Mike Lacey and Jim Larkin. They really did create a media empire that began with the New Times of Phoenix; they really were arrested in the dead of night by Sheriff Joe Arpaio's goons; they really did create Backpage.com that Congress calls an "online brothel,' they really are currently awaiting trial on scores of charges they facilitated child sex-trafficking.
The story woven around these characters--ripped from today's headlines--will shock you to your core.
Cattle Kate is the only woman ever lynched as a cattle rustler. History called it “range-land justice” when she was strung up in Wyoming Territory on July 20, 1889, tarring her as a dirty thief and a filthy whore.
But history was wrong. It was all a lie.
Her real name was Ella Watson. She wasn’t a rustler. She wasn’t a whore. And she’d never been called Cattle Kate until she was dead and they needed an excuse. She was really a twenty-nine-year-old immigrant homesteader, lynched along with her husband by her rich and powerful cattle-baron neighbors, who wanted her land and its precious water rights. Some people knew the truth from the start. Their voices were drowned out by the all-powerful Wyoming Stock Growers Association. And those who dared speak out—including the eyewitnesses to the hangings—either disappeared or mysteriously died. There was no one left to testify against the vigilantes when the case eventually came to trial. Her six killers walked away scot-free. But the legend was stronger than the truth. For over a century, newspapers, magazines, books, and movies spread her ugly legacy.
Now, on the 125th anniversary of her murder, the real Ella comes alive in Cattle Kate to tell her heartbreaking story. Jana Bommersbach’s debut novel bares a legend central to the western experience.
“In her outstanding first novel, a historical mystery, journalist Bommersbach resurrects the name and reputation of real-life Ellen “Ella” Watson…Bommersbach beautifully recreates the milieu in which Ella struggled to realize her dreams.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
