ASHLAND, Ky. — Coy Hall, a professor of history at Ashland Community and Technical College is releasing his second novel.

Available for purchase on June 14, The Hangman Feeds the Jackal is a gothic western published by Nosetouch Press.

The book will release in paperback and ebook and can be purchased anywhere online where books are sold, including Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Wal-Mart.

According to the book’s synopsis, the novel is about a gunfighter named Elijah Valero, who is afflicted with terrifying hallucinations, including a pervasive one of The Hangman out to kill him.

Dogged by the relentless specter of the Hangman, Valero mistakenly kills an innocent man and is forced to hide in an abandoned monastery for his own safety and for those of others. Once there, he encounters far greater dangers than the imaginary Hangman, and gains a bid for redemption as he faces down some silver-hungry drifters out to terrorize a town for its riches.

“I’m proud to be releasing a western novel, and one in the form I call a Gothic Western. I love the Classic Western, where good and bad are divided along clear lines, but the real West was ugly, desperate, apathetic and mean for most,” Hall said. “As a historian, I think the model of the Gothic Western, with its dark timbre, is truer to the real west. The line between good and bad is thin, blurred, sometimes nonexistent, sometimes so delicate that a single action or decision can determine the side on which you fall. The Classic Western emphasizes newness, gain, growth and the triumph of good. The Gothic Western emphasizes decay, loss, withering humanity and the banality of evil. It’s an antidote to the mythology.”

Hall’s first novel, “Grimoire of the Four Imposters,” was released last September.