ANDREW McBRIDE AUTHOR: AUTHOR FAVOURITES: O’MEARA’S GOLD by JEFFREY J. MARIOTTE

JEFFREY J. MARIOTTE is the bestselling, multiple-award-winning author of more than fifty novels ranging across genres, including ‘dark thrillers,’ supernatural thrillers, horror and latterly westerns. He has also produced comic books, short stories, graphic novels, nonfiction and video games. As well as his own original work, he has written novels and comics based on licensed properties such as CSI, Star Trek, Spider-Man, Superman, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Conan the Barbarian and more.

Jeff is a three-time winner of the Scribe Award for best novel, presented by the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers, a co-winner of the Raven Award from the Mystery Writers of America, and a recipient of the Inkpot Award for his contributions to the fields of science fiction and fantasy from the San Diego Comic-Con. He's been a finalist for the Bram Stoker Award from the Horror Writers Association, the International Horror Guild Award, the Spur Award from the Western Writers of America, the Peacemaker Award from the Western Fictioneers, and, in the comics’ field, the Harvey and Glyph Awards.

Jeff’s THE FOX AND THE SNAKE was, for me, one of the highlights of SIX GUN JUSTICE PODCAST WESTERN STORIES, an anthology of western short stories edited by Richard Prosch, introduced by Paul Bishop. In my blog about SIX GUN JUSTICE PODCAST WESTERN STORIES I write: ‘Mariotte wastes not a word in this taut, superbly-written tale. Once more, the cinematic qualities of the writing brought movies to mind, perhaps a Sam Peckinpah-directed end-of-the-west elegy with a script by Elmore Leonard. (Full review here: https://andrewmcbrideauthor.blogspot.com/2021/11/andrew-mcbrides-review-of-six-gun.html )

Jeff tells me he has three particular favourites of his own novels, one of which is O'MEARA'S GOLD, because, as he tells me: ‘I've never had so much fun writing a book, and I've wanted to write "traditional Westerns" for decades.’ O'MEARA'S GOLD is the first of a trilogy of books featuring Cody Cavanaugh. Jeff says, (and I’m sure this is a motivation for many authors) ‘It's a Western I always wanted to read, but I had to write it because nobody else had.’

When, in 1864, Union private Cody Cavanaugh is captured and sent to the Confederate prison at Camp Tattnall, he's befriended by Sean O'Meara. O'Meara, dying, passes on to Cody his secret: the location of a stash of stolen Confederate gold. Cody promises to deliver the gold to O'Meara's fiancée, Eleanor Perry. But it’s not until the 1870s that he finds her, in Pedregosa, Arizona Territory. Pedregosa is in the grip of a war between miners and ranchers, and Cody winds up in the middle of it, facing an old enemy…

Some American Civil War POW camps acquired a grim reputation for inhuman conditions. During a period of 14 months, 28% of the Union prisoners held at Camp Sumter, near Andersonville, Georgia died.