Action Fiction Western

Western author J. A. Johnstone won a devoted following for authentic details, intriguing characters, and fast-paced action. In Rattlesnake Valley, a motley band of pirates descends on a valley town - and the local residents are wholly unprepared for the mayhem that follows. But one man, the son of legendary gunfighter Frank Morgan, refuses to sit idly by. And the sea dogs in question are soon going to wish they were back on the high seas.

The marshal's name was Borden Chantry. Young, lean, rugged, he's buried a few men in this two-bit cow town - every single one killed in a fair fight. Then, one dark, grim day a mysterious gunman shot a man in cold blood. Five grisly murders later, Chantey was faced with the roughest assignment of his life - find that savage, trigger-happy hard case before he blasts apart every man in town...one by bloody one.

In December 1850, the dark hours before dawn make 12-year-old Patrick O’Connell shiver. He lives with his mother and older sister in a wet and drafty shack. Patrick has been the man of the family ever since Da, his father, sailed from Ireland to America. But now he has a problem he can’t solve: there isn’t enough money to pay the rent.

Born and bred in the Texas Pandhandle town of Comanche Crossing, William "Wild Bill" Longley gunned down a dozen of its men in cold blood before he got around to the sheriff and deputy - so he could take over the job himself. Then he found the perfect sidekick in a vicious career criminal named Booker Tate.

He is brave, tough as leather, and has left behind a trail of deadly enemies - outlaws he's hunted down or killed with the cold heart of a man used to violence. A feared bounty hunter and the scourge of bad men everywhere, Flintlock carries an ancient Hawken muzzle-loader, handed down to him from the mountain man who raised him. He stands as the towering hero of a new Johnstone saga.

Written to commemorate the Bicentennial in 1976, James A. Michener's magnificent saga of the West is an enthralling celebration of the frontier. Brimming with the glory of America's past, the story of Colorado - the Centennial State - is manifested through its people: Lame Beaver, the Arapaho chieftain and warrior, and his Comanche and Pawnee enemies; Levi Zendt, fleeing with his child bride from the Amish country; and the cowboy, Jim Lloyd, who falls in love with a wealthy and cultured Englishwoman, Charlotte Seccombe.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas in the High Sierras. But Smoke Jensen and his children, Louis and Denise, won’t let a little snow stop them from heading to Reno for the holidays. There are two ways for them to get there: the long way, going around the Sierra Nevada Mountains, or the short way, going right through them. Smoke decides to take a gamble. They’ll follow the trail that, decades earlier, brought the legendary Donner Party to a gruesome, tragic end....

Sam'l Flintlock has been hired to protect an innocent man who narrowly escaped the noose but everyone still seems to want dead. The murder of a school teacher sets in motion a battle to the death that pits Flintlock against the hidden man who pulls the strings in the town of Open Sky. But first Flintlock must find out who that man is, what he wants and why. As people start dying, the pieces start to fall together and Flintlock knows that for every evil deed there must be a reckoning....and Flintlock is that reckoning.

Their father is Luke Jensen, supposedly killed in the Civil War. Their uncle Smoke is one of the fiercest gunfighters the west has ever known. It's no surprise that the inseparable Ace and Chance Jensen have a knack for taking risks — even if they have to blast their way out of them. Chance is a bit of a hothead, good with his gun and his fists. Ace is more of a thinker, sharp as a snake bite and just as deadly quick. Their skills are put to the test when two young ladies ask them to protect their struggling stagecoach line from a ruthless, bloodthirsty mine owner.

It’s been 15 years since brothers Michael and Andrew Lewis came from Tennessee to Mexican-run Texas to hunt wild horses. They have settled and found wives, and they’re now joined by their brother and sister, James and Annie. James becomes a volunteer in a fledgling army of rebels led by Sam Houston. Michael and Andrew are separated from their families and each other, being drawn into the conflict as the drive toward independence from the government of Mexico City gains momentum.

Mexico won its freedom from Spain, and now the American settlers in Texas want their independence from the government of Mexico. Revolution is in the air, and the Lewis family is caught up in the struggle which will lead to the doomed battle of the Alamo.

This begins the saga of The Lewis family, Mordecai and his sons Michael and Andrew. The leave Tennessee and head for Spanish-ruled Texas in search of wild horses. What they find will change their lives forever.

He’s the most notorious cattle rustler in all of Texas. His name — Jebediah Cotton — strikes fear into the hearts of every rancher in the territory. So it’s more than a little strange that someone would shoot Cotton’s youngest son in the back. Whoever did it is either a coward, a fool, or a crazy man. Whoever did it must die. Even if he’s a US deputy marshal named Will Tanner....

They call him "The Butcher of Baxter Pass," the notorious former Union General who massacred 200 Confederate prisoners just because he could! Now it's Sheriff Jess Casey's unenviable job to protect the bloodthirsty murderer from those who want him dead...pretty much everyone south of the Mason-Dixon Line!

"Stay the hell out of Fort Worth." Those were the last words uttered by a dying man who was the boomtown's most recent sheriff. Rail-thin and half starved, desperate cowpuncher Jess Casey ignores the travel advice. Instead, Jess not only enters Fort Worth, he becomes the new sheriff, inheriting the body-riddled little slice of heaven called Hell's Half Acre, the wide-open, deadliest piece of real estate on the American frontier.

In the dark shadow of the Prophecy Mountains lies the ramshackle town of Rattlesnake Wells, where dreamers come to make their fortunes, and desperados come to die. The streets of this little settlement are slick with mud and stained with blood, and it will fall to Bob Hatfield to sweep them clean. The town marshal, Hatfield has a young man’s face, but his eyes are those of a killer. He is a good man, but he has a secret that weighs on his soul.

Three weeks before Christmas, the little town of Chug Water in Wyoming Territory is stunned by a brutal crime. The mayor's family has been slaughtered in cold blood on their ranch outside of Raw Hide Butte. As the townsfolk gather to pay their last respects, Duff MacCallister saddles up to go after the killers. He returns with two outlaws - a cold-blooded, nasty pair of snakes, Jesse and T. Bob Cave.

In a small Texas town in 1950, a man from the Pinkerton Detective Agency interrupts an old-timer's daily game of dominos to learn the truth about Butch Cassidy - who is still alive and well and sitting right in front of him.... So begins the novel of the West's most legendary outlaw - as told by America's master storytellers, William W. Johnstone and J.A. Johnstone. Butch Cassidy: The Lost Years reveals the stunning secret behind that infamous shootout in Bolivia that claimed the lives of the Sundance Kid and, allegedly, Butch himself.

Brewster Ritter had a warning for Flintlock: Do not cross the Sabine River. Ritter, the so-called Baron of the Bayou, is a vicious crime king still seething because Flintlock killed one of his gunmen in a Texas dustup. But Flintlock has his own powerful reasons for crossing into the nightmarish swamp country from East Texas. Now in an eerie land of mysterious mists, haunting cypress trees, snakes, gators, and black-hearted, trigger-happy war hogs, Ritter is waiting for Flintlock with enough men and guns to kill him 10 times over.

Building a ranching empire is one thing - keeping it out of the hands of robbers, kidnappers, murderers, embezzlers, and every no good opportunist crawling through the Arizona desert is a daily grind for Chet Byrnes. He’s just as likely to rescue a stolen daughter as he is to recover rustled cattle on any given day. But with a family to keep safe and enough real target practice to keep his aim deadly, nothing’s going to stop Chet from bringing his ranch into a bold new era.