The Law of Hemlock Mountain

An ill-tempered poker game at a Philippine army post introduces Lieutenant John Spurrier, a gifted officer whose appetite for high stakes unsettles his companions. When Captain Comyn challenges the meaning of his repeated good fortune, a quarrel breaks through military discipline. Hugh Lundsford builds the opening around heat, strained nerves, wounded pride and the uneasy boundary between skill and recklessness.

Set partly in Kentucky's Cumberland Mountains, the novel also follows Spurrier's attachment to Glory, whose direct declarations disturb his carefully controlled view of life. Their affection runs against the future he has planned after the army casts him out. Romance and suspense meet in a story concerned with ambition, reputation and the cost of keeping command over one's feelings. Readers interested in regional fiction can find mountain speech alongside a tense portrait of a man pulled between personal feeling and worldly success.