A quite extraordinary piece of historical recreation in a biographical novel based on the life of Jim Bowie, whose name has been immortalized in the "bowie knife". From the time of his youth, his was a life teaming with the spirit and mood of a frontier region. Bowie found New Orleans and particularly its women tempting and alluring. He won renown as a duelist and his famous knife - "the iron mistress" - served him well, but romance caught him unaware and hurt him to the core. Above all, his prowess, his dauntless courage, his ingenuity in achieving impossible goals won him fame and notoriety.