Sunset Pass

by Zane Grey

First published 1931

Amazon

4.0(595)

A determined rider enters the range country south of Winslow, Arizona, to investigate cattle losses that appear to be connected with an organised rustling operation. The scheme is protected by respectable appearances and family loyalties, making it difficult to separate ordinary ranching from deliberate theft.

His enquiries draw him into deception, local hostility and a romance that complicates the simple division between law-abiding ranchers and criminals. The novel uses cattle work and the economics of the open range to show how rustling could flourish through cooperation, silence and control of information rather than through isolated acts of theft.