Rock Island Robbery

A gritty Western thriller in the tradition of Cormac McCarthy and Larry McMurtry

April 3, 1895. The Oklahoma Territory. Five desperate outlaws stop a southbound Rock Island train in a robbery that will seal their fates.

Tulsa Jack Blake and the notorious Wild Bunch—Bill Doolin, Red Buck Waightman, Bitter Creek Newcomb, and Charley Pierce—storm an express car in a hail of gunfire, terrorizing passengers and crew in their ruthless pursuit of payroll money. What should have been an easy score turns into a blood-soaked nightmare of violence, betrayal, and survival.

Told in the hard-boiled style of Elmore Leonard, ROCK ISLAND ROBBERY is an unflinching portrayal of the Old West's dying days, where lawless men ride hard, shoot first, and discover that some prices are too high to pay—even for outlaws with nothing left to lose.

From the first gunshot to the final desperate escape across the brutal Oklahoma prairie, this is outlaw fiction at its rawest: no redemption, no heroes, just hard men making harder choices as Deputy Marshal William Bartling Murrill closes in for the kill.

Perfect for fans of:

Authentic Western historical fiction

Outlaw narratives and gunfighter tales

Gritty frontier violence and moral ambiguity

Train robbery thrillers

The Wild West's real-life desperados

Action-packed Western adventure

Old West law enforcement manhunts

Oklahoma Territory history

The Doolin-Dalton Gang saga

Based on the true story of one of the Wild Bunch's final robberies, twenty-four hours before the law caught up with Tulsa Jack Blake.

Five outlaws. One train. Seventy-four dollars. Some jobs aren't worth the bullet.