When Wendell Moon hightailed it out of Monotony, he left in his wake a murdered lawman and a mob braying for his blood.

Fifteen years later the word is out — Wendell Moon is back! But for Sheriff Cassidy Yates, Wendell's unwelcome return rekindles old vendettas and ignites three days of raging gun battles.

Now the sheriff has the impossible duty of keeping the peace, but as if that isn't enough Wendell also claims he never killed the lawman.

If Cassidy doesn't unearth the truth quickly, Wendell's trigger-happy enemies will deliver their own form of gun-toting justice. Real trouble lies ahead.

On Trinity's main road four men stood before the town's only hotel, their long coats rippling in the cool, evening breeze.

Each man was grizzled and dirty. Long years of harsh weather had tanned their faces to dull leather.

They shared nods, then clumped on to the boardwalk. The tallest man, Zachary Forester, pulled his hat low so that it nestled above his cold eyes, then pushed through the hotel's door.

He swaggered to the reception desk, clumping his boots on the hardwood floor with deliberate paces.

The receptionist, Dexter, looked up. He gulped.

'What can I do for you four gentlemen?' he asked.

Zachary grinned, a streak of ice amid the bristles and grime.

'Get me Wendell Moon,' he muttered, his voice low and gravely.

Dexter rubbed his sweating palms on his jacket.

'Mr Moon is a popular man in Trinity. He gave explicit instructions that he is not seeing visitors this late.'

'Is that so?'

'It is.' Dexter placed his pen in the centre of his reservations book. He fluffed the potted palm on the desk and ran a long finger along the nearest frond of a huge aspidistra. 'And as he isn't here for long, he can't see everyone that wants an audience.'

'An audience.' Zachary glanced back at his associates, who all snorted a humourless chuckle. 'I don't want an audience.'

'Then what do you want?'

With a move like lightning Zachary grabbed Dexter's collar and dragged him across the desk, Dexter's flailing arms crashing the plants to the floor.

'I want to see Wendell Moon. Now!'

Dexter wheezed. He batted his fists against Zachary's firm hand but finding no give, he slumped and gave the smallest of nods.

For ten seconds Zachary held on, then threw him back behind the desk.

Dexter smoothed his ruffled jacket and grabbed his reservations book. He riffled through to the last page, swivelled it round, and jammed a finger beside a name.

'I am not allowed to say which room Mr Moon is in,' he said, raising his voice. He waggled his eyebrows and looked down at his finger.

Zachary glanced at the finger, then slammed both fists on the desk.

'Don't belittle me,' he roared, thrusting his face to within inches of Dexter's cringing face. 'Where is Wendell?'

Dexter backed. He blinked twice, gulping.

'Mr Moon is in room eleven,' he said, his voice shaking. 'It's on the second floor. An eleven has two straight lines with-'

'Enough,' Zachary muttered, turning from the desk. He stormed to the stairs and mounted them four at a time.

Behind him, Dexter grumbled to himself as he rescued the plants from the floor, then silenced when the other three men glared at him.

On the second floor landing Zachary paced back and forth. While the others clumped up the stairs, he drew his gun. He threw open the barrel, confirmed he had six bullets loaded, and threw it closed.

When his men joined him on the landing, they did likewise. Lester Jameson pushed to the front.

'I'll lead,' he said.

'You ain't,' Zachary snapped, slamming Lester back against the wall. 'I've waited fifteen years for this — nobody will deny me.'

Lester glared back, then nodded.

Zachary stalked down the corridor, glaring at each of the passing doors until he reached room eleven. While his men took positions on either side of him, he took long, deep breaths and rolled his shoulders.

Each man hunched their shoulders and thrust their guns straight out.

Zachary kicked open the door.

The door slammed back against the wall and rebounded, Zachary catching it with his left hand. He stood with his gun aimed into the room, then swung around the door, dropping to his haunches and aiming at the bed.

The bed was empty — as was the rest of the room.

With an angry snort, Zachary stalked inside, his men following.

Lester dashed through the room. He peered under the bed, threw open cupboard doors and riffled through the drawers, but Zachary only had eyes for the open window.

There, the curtains billowed.

One steady pace at a time he stalked to the window, his gun held upright, the cold metal brushing his right cheek. The veranda appeared.

With an assured lunge he swung outside and glanced left and right.

The veranda was unoccupied.

He swung back in, gritting his teeth.

As he forced his anger to subside, he slammed his fist against his thigh, then holstered his gun. He rolled his tongue around his mouth and spat a long stream of spit on the floor.

He smiled.

A plate rested on the bedside table — and a cigar smouldered on it.

He strode to the table, considering the cigar's rising funnel of smoke. He lifted the cigar and sniffed the acrid fumes.

With an angry lunge he ground the cigar into crumbled leaves.

'We're getting closer,' he whispered.

Late one sleepless night, my mind was wandering, and for some reason it fixed on the film Lost Highways.

I'd seen the film a year or so before and like most of David Lynch's films I had been disappointed, but somehow, despite the disappointment, it had burrowed its way deep into my subconscious and from time to time, it burrowed its way out and wouldn't go away.

As a side-issue, if you liked Eraserhead, I'd recommend you watch Lost Highways, but only for the first hour. This sustained and intense piece of cinema plays out like a direct sequel to that twisted movie, with unsettling sound effects, disturbingly surreal visuals and that glorious 'What the hell is going on?' feeling. But you should stop watching when the single most bizarre plot twist in cinema history hits you and the movie descends into pointless meanderings.

Anyhow, the thing that I couldn't remember that sleepless night was the story behind Lynch's inspiration for the film. Apparently, Lynch had had a dream in which he picked up the phone and someone whispered something to him. When he awoke, he couldn't get that whispered something out of his mind, so to free his mind, he wrote it down. And from that start he went on to develop a script. In fact, just about the only audible line of dialogue in the first fifteen minutes is that one line.

But no matter how much I pondered, I couldn't remember what that line was and, in the middle of the night, these things are important.

Eventually, I decided that the line was — "Wendell Moon is back", and I went to sleep.

The next day, I couldn't get that phrase out of mind, so the only way to remove it was to do what Lynch had done and write down the phrase and see what happened next.

So I wrote a Good, the Bad, and the Ugly style set of introductory scenes in which three characters rode into town, did something sinister, then closed the scene by uttering the enigmatic line, "Wendell Moon is back.".

Each of these characters had a different opinion as to whether Wendell Moon's return was a good thing or a bad thing, and so when I came to write a scene with Wendell Moon in it, he became an enigmatic figure. He could be a good guy. He could be a bad guy. He could be a bad guy turned good guy.

As I needed to discover the truth about him, that seemed a good excuse to reintroduce Cassidy Yates, who I hadn't written about since The Last Rider from Hell , to investigate.

When I'd finished, I edited out the mannered start in which the main characters muttered, "Wendell Moon is back." And when Hale rejected Wendell Moon is Back as a title, the only remaining hints of the origins of the story were in the blurb.

Strangely, I still haven't discovered what that line in Lost Highways is. I'm sure I'll be disappointed to discover it's nothing like I remembered it.