In the year 1836 a gang of five-hundred pirates, killers-brutal, evil murderers--live on an island in the Mississippi that is known as the Devil's Den. The devil of the Den is John Murel with the blackest heart of them all even if his traveling disguise is that of a preacher. The killers of the Devil's Den have a favorite and lucrative crime: slave stealing. They sell the stolen slaves, telling them to run away from their new owners and back to the thieves, with the promise to take them to freedom. But the lie quickly wears thin as the thieves sell and resell them until the stolen slaves become known, hot items. Then the thieves kill them, open them up and fill them with rocks to sink them to the bottom of the big river. But their crimes are not limited to slaves or blacks-or anyone. John Murel rules the Devil's Den with iron will and quick gun, and fears only one man in the entire country: Able Grayson. Grayson is an old hero of the Battle of New Orleans, having led a squad of men down from Natchez to fight with General Andrew Jackson against the British. He and his men become immortalized by their bravery and earn the title: Grayson's Raiders. John Murel warns his men to steer clear of Natchez and Grayson, but one day some of the wild ones hit the town. They steal a pair of slaves, but are caught in the act by a white girl. So they abduct the white girl also-a girl who turns out to be connected to Able Grayson. Grayson has only one response when he hears of the abduction-he loads his musket and two revolvers, packs his saddle and heads upriver to the Devil's Den. The word gets out, and his old Raiders, the two dozen that are left of them, saddle up and join him, uninvited, on the ride-even if they know it will be the last ride of Grayson's Raiders.
About the Author: Roger Russell was born on a cotton farm across the Mississippi River from the famous old town of Natchez, Mississippi. He grew up a devoted fan of the great river and of the history-rich city of Natchez. And cotton and pirates were in his blood. History was made alive for him, from the many stories of river pirates, frontier villains, French and Spanish explores and adventurers, including seeing the farm plows continually turn up the many American Indian artifacts from the soil of his father's farm on what was once Native Indian lands. The John Murel gang was of particular interest seeing that their brutal island had existed not too far from his father's farm. But the history books of school and college were lean on facts of the famous pirates. Yet, the folk lore and legend of the deadly pirates, and the brave man that took them on, would inspire the writing of "The Last Ride of Grayson's Raiders." Roger is a life-long historian and writer of books, stories, and poetry of a life stretching from simple farm life to traveler of far distant places. He claims to write, not so much by the love of the art, but by the unyielding demand of the muse. He is finally hard at work on a long-resisted Civil War novel, a two-volume work about a little-known, but very illustrious, very real Southern mail-runner, spy.