In the Ash of Dreams

This is Book V in the Ice and Gold Series. The Finale. They have prevailed over the hardships that threatened to take their very lives as they trekked hundreds of miles through untamed wilderness to reach this place over trepidation and fear, heightened by an unknown future and the gold fever that drives them. They have also endured each other, as they weather: debauchery, excesses, lawlessness, greed, trickery, and piousness to find their place in this, the greatest city on the mighty Yukon River of the far north.

Dawson has emerged from its infancy to become a booming metropolis. Boasting a population of thirty thousand between the town proper and the gold filled creeks, it has matured to a place where commerce nearly equals the wealth being drawn from beneath its gravels. The North West Mounted Police have arrived, ushering in the first glints of the laws any civilized society must live by; regardless of the fact that drunken revelry and prostitution remain untouched, being the lifeblood of this municipality.

Our favorite characters have succeeded in finding fame, fortune, and love; insomuch as the human condition will allow these to occur. But now, the ebb and flow witnessed at every gold strike prior or following the Klondike, rears its head. Rumors of a strike on the far off Alaskan coast, a new camp called Nome, are beckoning to those who cannot stomach the footprint of constraint and civilization.

Success breeds only the need for more: more gold, more wealth, and more love. A final grand scheme at the Monte Carlo will threaten the gains made by all and will shepherd in that element which man controls and fears at the same time.