LUCK (First Edition)

Pierre Ryder has been forged by the sternest of frontier Jesuits for the hard life of a missionary priest in the frozen wastes of the Far North. Although a novice short of his vows, he is a young David, mighty in faith and learning, able to ride any horse, to run a hundred miles a day behind a dog-team, to fight skillfully, and to shoot unerringly. Yet he remains gentle and unaffected, his thoughts as clear as spring water.



Into this life a thunderbolt descends: a letter from his father, long thought dead, who lies dying of a bullet wound. Ignoring the pleas of the good priests, Pierre rides at once to avenge his father, into a life and a country far different from all he has ever known. He takes only the cross of Meilan, great in blessing and great in burden. When he meets Jacqueline Boone—Jack—his life and hers are changed forever. What he encounters he could not foresee, in depths of evil and betrayal and the mystery of the female heart.



Luck, like many of Max Brand’s works, originally appeared in serial form. It was the first installment in the life of one of his finest and most memorable tragic heroines. This first authentic book length publication restores important material and conforms to the author’s intentions.

Max Brand was the favorite pseudonym of Frederick Schiller Faust (1892–1944), creator of Dr. Kildare, Destry, and many other fictional characters popular with readers the world over. His novels have been reprinted again and again, translated into every major language, and adapted for film.