Summary
When he learns that President McKinley is dying from an assassin’s bullet, Vice-President Theodore Roosevelt decides that before he can assume the Presidency, he must suppress a dangerous secret from his past, a secret that could cripple his ability to govern the United States, a secret that could tarnish his otherwise spotless reputation. Did he really cross paths with Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid fifteen years earlier in 1886 Montana? When Roosevelt sees Bat Masterson, the soon-to-become President enlists his help, disclosing the untold events and assigning him the task of managing the potential scandal. Will Masterson be able to pull all the threads together and keep the secret safe from the American public?
About the Author
TERRY ROW is the award-winning author of Summer Capricorn (2006) and Untarnished Reputation (2009), which received an Honorable Mention in the Genre Category at the 2009 Hollywood Book Festival and took the top prize in the Western Category at the National Indie Excellence Awards of 2010. His newest title, Phyllis Marie was published in 2011.
In addition to his work as a novelist, he teaches, edits manuscripts for other novelists and moderates the Los Alamos Writers’ Group. He lives in northern Santa Barbara County with his wife, ceramic artist Ramona Clayton. He remains a lifelong avocationist, pursuing independent studies in writing, literature, poetry, music, history, cinema, photography, travel, eclipse-chasing, astronomy, chess, gardening, and bird watching.
Reviews
UNTARNISHED REPUTATION is an engrossing tale written in the style of Theodore Roosevelt's adventure journal, Hunting Trips of a Ranchman. Mr. Row has wedded several theories having to do with the now-infamous Hunters Hot Springs group photograph. He has spun them nicely into an intriguing fictional interpretation of how and why a soon-to-be president Roosevelt in 1901 might have sought the secret service of Bat Masterson to cover up a fifteen-year-old scandal. Butch Cassidy, Sundance and Etta, Virgil and Wyatt Earp, and other well-known lawmen and outlaws too numerous to mention figure prominently in this Old West story of honor and reputation. A rollicking good yarn follows two timelines, one told from the point of view of a young Teddy Roosevelt. Very entertaining, and certainly it's a must-read for TR fans, or for anyone who has ever seen a copy of the Hunters Hot Springs group photo!
— Jason Leaf, Hunters Hot Springs researcher and
Webmaster and Author, http://members.shaw.ca/huntershotsprings/
