High Iron: second trick – Paperback

HIGH IRON: SECOND TRICK, this combines part one, the Power, and part 2, the Fury, into one complete explosive tale!

The Nevada Short Line is open for business. But a throne built on steel is an invitation to a strike.

Four months after rebuilding a heavy-freight corridor from the Mojave to Yucca Mountain, RJ Harrington and the Tonopah and Tidewater face a brand-new battlefield. With multi-billion-dollar nuclear recycling contracts breaking ground and lithium ore moving fast, the Tonopah & Tidewater Railroad is the vital economic pulse of the Great Basin. But keeping the heavy iron rolling means surviving a relentless crossfire of corporate espionage, bureaucratic power plays, and high-desert chaos.

While Mags O’Hanrahan commands the mechanical throttle and Jack Westcott hustles commercial logistics, the threats multiply on every front:

• The Global Syndicate: Omnitrans directors in Frankfurt are quietly plotting calculated disruptions to strangle the independent Nevada line from overseas.
• The Bureaucratic Gridlock: Janet Pillman moves to shut down the T&T entirely, driven by the conviction that the Sovereigns are dangerous outsiders and she alone must maintain absolute control of the region.
• The Local Uprising: In Goldfield, the eccentric Cal Bishop is hatching grand plans to put the historic town back not only on the map of Nevada, but squarely on the map of the world.
• The Ideological Shadows: Radical environmentalists plot to shut down the railroad by any means necessary, weaponizing their extreme ideologies against the heavy industrial corridor.
• The Hidden Puppet-Master: Behind every opposing force, strike, and sabotage, everything seems to be quietly manipulated and controlled by one sinister foreign hand.
• The Desert Spirits: The ancient, guardian entities of the Great Basin quietly watch over the rails, interceding in mysterious, benevolent ways to protect those who respect and honor the land.

From university lecture halls in Reno to the sun-baked alkali flats of Esmeralda County, Harrington, Mags, and their tight-knit crew must defend their sovereign rails against a world determined to break them.

Out here on the high iron, family is your crew, the desert keeps its own time, and the only way forward is straight through.