It’s 1858 with “Gold For the Taking!”
Thousands came to get it in the Fraser River Gold Rush
The Deadly Five and the Second Five are Historical Fiction novels
Depicting Five Men’s Ongoing Search for Gold
The Deadly Five
The Epic Search for Gold Begins With Five Untried Partners...
Sometimes a true friend is as hard to find as gold.
Who can you trust to have your back when things become dangerous and deadly? Four other untried partners?
Life doesn't always give us a choice in who we must trust!
Five unlikely partners undertake an epic adventure searching for gold. With danger at every turn, the men rely on one another for survival. Together they find more than gold, the greater treasurer of true friendship and brotherhood…
The story begins with Mean Mike, Nothing Brown, and Jacque forming a loose partnership while traveling on the same steamer heading for Victoria and the Fraser River Gold Rush in 1859.
Their adventure in gold hunting is by canoe from Victoria across the Straits of Georgia to the British Columbia mainland and the Fraser River at New Westminster. There, Seph, a former bartender, becomes a partner with the men.
As they travel up the Fraser searching for gold, Old Man Magee joins them at Fort Langley. It is between Fort Hope and Fort Yale that the men are in the thick of gold panning and using a rocker to find gold. Even as they find gold, it is with the willingness to split what is found equally between the five. Their gold search is a good success, but not without an unwanted charge of being, ‘The Deadly Five.’
The Second Five
The Epic Search for Gold continues with three original and two new partners to a compelling and convincing conclusion.
These Five find that their gold search leads each of them to different life endeavors.
Dreams and goals keep changing in everyone's lives. Not even gold keeps us content.
In The Deadly Five, the search for gold along British Columbia’s treacherous Fraser River ended with the arrival of winter 1859.
It is now spring 1860, and Nothing Brown, Mean Mike, and Jacque continue their quest for gold in The Second Five, this time joined by English nobleman Henry Arden and Jacque’s seventeen-year-old son, Claude (CF), both eager to prove they can hold their own on this second search.
The partners meet old enemies plus more than their share of new ones along the way. The lovely Maggie Kelly and a highly prized bluetick coonhound are also able to captivate hearts in this non-stop adventure.
Set in the lawlessness of the Fraser River Gold Rush, The Second Five is a story about the value of trust, respect, and friendship as more important than gold.
What Readers About
'The Second Five'
(The Sequel)
Following the exploits of The Deadly Five in Maher's first book, this new band of colorful characters includes both familiar faces and some new personalities who will escort readers on a wild ride through this fascinating chapter of British Columbia history.
Maher masterfully weaves an exciting tale, fraught with danger yet balanced with good humor, as this unlikely band of brothers learns about “the dark side of gold and the cost of chasing dreams.”
What Readers About
'The Deadly Five'
With a mixture of great characters, exciting action and terrific weaving in of fact and fiction, you've created a fun read that will appeal to anyone who likes adventure stories.
[The plot] moves along swiftly like the Fraser River, carrying the reader along in the action. Very well executed.
I found the plot to be exciting. The mixture of fact and fiction made the story of the Fraser River Gold Rush hard to put down. I felt I was there along with the characters, experiencing the hardships, not only from nature, but from other men fighting to achieve the same aims. They all want to strike it rich and will do whatever it takes to make that happen.
I loved your characters…[Y]ou infused each of the five with a colorful backstory... I grew to care about them and wanted them to succeed. I enjoyed…the fact that none are either all saint or all sinner. They were each complex in their own way.
What I especially liked was that none are the same person by the end of the story. Their experiences have changed them, which made them that much more believable and satisfying to get to know.
I read it in one sitting, enjoying each chapter and getting to know the characters and the time period.
Maher’s extensive research gives his readers a compelling look at this fascinating time period and the rugged individuals who made the isolated BC wilderness come alive with dreams of untold riches. His colorful characters are both deeply flawed and delightfully amusing at times. Each one struggles with past failures, and perhaps unrealistic dreams, and each one rises to the occasion when the going gets tough – and it gets plenty tough at times! Readers will easily find a character they can relate to as they journey along with them into the 19th century BC wilderness. Watch out for the moose!"
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
“Authentic historical events through absorbing
fiction.”
Raymond Maher is an author with a lifelong passion for the history of Canada. His ongoing study of the Fraser River Gold Rush is the catalyst for the setting of his two historical fiction novels.
Writer’s Digest magazine’s 90th Annual Writing Competition Honorable Mention in the Inspirational or Spiritual category for “A Cuckoo on the Street.”