A Congregation of Jackals: Author's Preferred Text

Nominated for The Peacemaker award by the Western Fictioneers Nominated for The Spur award by the Western Writers of America "A thoroughly modern perspective to the familiar archetypal trappings. What happens when gang meets gang...is more horrific than anything we might have imagined." --Booklist, starred review "A mature and thoughtful Western that can stand up alongside anything that Cormac McCarthy or Larry McMurtry have written. Its unrepentant violence, intensity, and dark worldview could appeal to fans of crime fiction." --Somebody Dies "If you have a hankering for a gritty, realistic and downright thrilling Western, S. Craig Zahler is your man." --Jeremy Cesarec, Unbound Nook Blog

In 1888 Oswell Danford is living a hard but satisfying life as a rancher in Virginia when he receives an unexpected telegram. A wedding invitation should be cause to celebrate but not when it means he’ll have to face past deeds that he’s deeply ashamed of.

Now he and his brother, along with their ex-compatriot, an inveterate gambler from New York, will have to travel to Montana Territory to settle an old score they’d nearly forgotten. They will join the expectant congregation at the small town church for the marriage of their former brother-in-arms. But while everyone else will be wishing a blissful future for the happy couple, these men will be praying the darkness from their past doesn’t devour the entire town. A Congregation of Jackals is an unrelenting tale of betrayal and revenge told with a precise brutality that will leave you breathless and haunted.

While Zahler is not a stranger to the Western genre he brings his own unique twist to the Wild West. He wrote and directed Bone Tomahawk, the breakout Horror/Western crossover film of 2015 and his novel Wraiths of the Broken Land is being adapted for the screen by Ridley Scott and Drew Goddard. Although these three works don’t share characters or plotlines he considers them to be something of a thematic trilogy. All three share his fascination with revenge, betrayal and extreme violence in the defense of innocence.