Book excerpt: An heir of John Buchan and Rider Haggard, Holland is a storyteller, dealing in mysteries and marvels ... he holds the reader's attention in an iron grip' DAILY TELEGRAPH 1878. The golden days of dinosaur discoveries. In the still-Wild West, fossils of a monstrous size are being uncovered by America's two greatest bone-hunters, Professors Marsh and Cope. Caught in the bitterest of feuds, their rival gangs steal or smash up each other's collections of bones, and clash murderously in the badlands of the West. Back in New York, the two professors are sniffing out tantalising rumours of the ultimate find. Also lured by these hints are enigmatic English scientist Captain Dawkins and Miss Lilian Prescott, a naïve but wilful heiress. Drawn into a web of corruption and murder, they are forced on a desperate hunt for a box of mysterious fossils - a quest filled with danger, adventure and extraordinary discoveries.