Ray Gaulden (1914-1986) aka Wesley Ray was a prolific author of westerns, including McVey’s Valley, Action at Alameda, High Country Showdown, and Glory Gulch, which was made into the 1968 movie Five Card Stud starring Dean Martin and Robert Mitchum. This was his only “non-western” novel. (The photo is AI).
Joe Duncan is a man on the run with $100,000 in stolen cash from a Nevada casino. But he makes the mistake of picking up a seemingly desperate woman on the highway who has some dark secrets of her own. And her brother just happens to be the corrupt police chief of the small town that Duncan hopes to hide out in. Soon everybody wants Duncan's stolen money... and they are willing to kill to get it.