The Story.

Road to Reckoning is a novel set in the first great depression of 1837. Thomas Walker is a twelve year old boy who finds himself orphaned and alone in strange-lands and badlands and only hoping to get home to New York. 

Pursued by the man who killed his father, who aims to correct the mistake of leaving the boy alive, Thomas Walker finds an unlikely and reluctant companion and protector in an aged Indiana ranger and veteran of the 1812 war.  

Henry Stands.

It is also the story of the first Colt firearm, the Paterson, the "improved revolving gun".

In a world of single-shot pistols the Paterson is the world's first practical revolving handgun. It will change the shape of warfare, of America, and it will change the lives of Thomas Walker and Henry Stands.

"This quiet triumph of a novel, a sad and impeccably nuanced tale set against a finely drawn landscape of early pioneer America, left me just amazed and delighted; it will surely establish Robert Lautner as a storyteller of the first order."

(Simon Winchester, author of The Men Who United the States and The Professor and the Madman)

“Remarkable … A novel about a young man reaching for manhood after the killing of his father and about the invention and selling of Col. Samuel Colt's revolving pistol, and the way it changed the West. Those who love True Grit will love this."

(Michael Korda, author of Hero)

‘Not a single needless word in ROAD TO RECKONING, a beautiful gem of a novel, exquisitely written and swiftly plotted. Set against a fascinating American landscape, with a heartbreakingly unforgettable character on a hero’s journey—it packs an old-fashioned emotional wallop’
KATHLEEN GRISSOM, author of The Kitchen House