Pete Benson was a big-city police detective. His job was intense, dangerous, and 24/7.

He loved it.

But he also had a loving wife and two young children he hardly saw.

So he made a choice.

Now Sheriff Pete Benson patrols Rhyolite County, Montana. His beat is bigger than some states, but it’s beautiful country with tall mountains and broad valleys—and more cows than people.

Rodgersburg, the county seat, has fewer than three thousand people. That’s where Benson and his family live, where he gets the daily gossip from the regulars at the Apex Bar, and where he knows most everyone and they know him.

Most people in Rhyolite County are good, honest, friendly folk—a bit quirky sometimes, but loveable. There’s Bootsey Gorman, an octogenarian prospector still looking for the one big mine he can call his own. And Mandy Lynn Marks, the town beauty who leaves a trail of bruised hearts and broken marriages in her curvaceous wake. And Kay Best, the sheriff’s indispensable right-hand “man” —when she isn’t playing practical jokes on him.

Of course, even in paradise trouble sometimes comes calling. Fortunately, Sheriff Pete Benson is on the job. He loves it. These are his stories.