<p>R. S. Belcher's debut novel, <i>The Six-Gun Tarot</i>, was enthusiastically greeted by critics and readers, who praised its wildly inventive mixture of dark fantasy, steampunk, and the Wild West. Now Belcher returns to Golgotha, Nevada, a bustling frontier town that hides more than its fair share of unnatural secrets.</p><p>1870. A haven for the blessed and the damned, including a fallen angel, a mad scientist, a pirate queen, and a deputy who is kin to coyotes, Golgotha has come through many nightmarish trials, but now an army of thirty-two outlaws, lunatics, serial killers, and cannibals are converging on the town, drawn by a grisly relic that dates back to the Donner Party ... and the dawn of humanity.</p><p>Sheriff Jon Highfather and his deputies already have their hands full dealing with train robbers, a mysterious series of brutal murders, and the usual outbreaks of weirdness. But with thirty-two of the most vicious killers on Earth riding into Golgotha in just a few day's time, the town and its people will be tested as never before - and some of them will never be the same.<br><i>The Shotgun Arcana</i> is even more spectacularly ambitious and imaginative than <i>The Six-Gun Tarot</i>, and confirms R. S. Belcher's status as a rising star.</p>
