In 1896, gold nuggets were found in a tributary of the Klondike River in the Yukon Territory. By the following year, the last great gold rush in North America was on. Like the earlier rushes, this one drew a motley throng of dreamers, entrepreneurs, rogues, and even future literary giants (Jack London) into it, including the three fascinating and very different men at the center of this true-life saga that combines the crime story and the frontier epic. George Carmack, supposed discoverer of the nuggets, quickly amassed a fortune. Charming but ruthless con man Soapy Smith and his cadre of thugs launched a series of serpentine plots to loot Carmacks fortune. That brought into the mix Charlie Siringo, who stood astride the epoch of the Wild West and the emergence of big business. After years as a cowboy, he had become an undercover operative for the Pinkerton Agency and worked to combat labor agitators in the mining industry. The ingenuity of both Siringo and Smith as they try to outwit each other, with Carmacks fortune at stake, makes for a tense, exciting tale filled with colorful characters. Booklist