Action Fiction Western

William W. Johnstone and J. A. Johnstone present Book 2 in the Man From Waco series.

It began with gold that had once belonged to Montezuma. Stolen and cached in a church in Mexico, it was recovered by two army officers who fled north for the French settlements. Along the way one stabbed the other to death. The remaining officer was eventually killed by Plains Indians, but he buried the treasure just before he died. Now Ronan Chantry, a handful of trappers, and an Irish girl whose father was killed after telling her a few vague landmarks are searching for the lost treasure. But they are not alone.

Val Darrant was just four years old the snowy night his mother abandoned him. But instead of meeting a lonely death, he met Will Reilly - a gentleman, a gambler, and a worldly, self-taught scholar. For 10 years they each were all the family the other had, traveling from dusty American boomtowns to the glittering cities of Belle Époque Europe - until the day Reilly’s luck ran out in a roar of gunfire. But it wasn’t a gambling brawl or a pack of thieves that sealed Will’s fate. It was a far more complex story that Val would soon uncover.

Wagon trains heading west were forced to defend themselves against Indians, cope with injuries and illness, and struggle to find food. The group of easterners Rock Bannon was scouting for faced another problem. They were being deceived. When he warned them to remain on the Humboldt Trail, Sharon Crockett and the others refused to listen. Mort Harper, a stranger riding a beautiful black mare, had dazzled them with his charm and good looks. The southern route was the best way to go, Harper told them. But best for whom?

Demons. Monsters. Witches. James Crowley’s sacred duty as a Black Badge is to hunt them down and send them packing, banish them from the mortal realm for good. He didn’t choose this life. No. He didn’t choose life at all. Shot dead in a gunfight many years ago, now he’s stuck in purgatory, serving the whims of the White Throne to avoid falling to Hell. Not quite undead, though not alive either, the best he can hope for is to work off his penance and fade away.

When Juan Cabrillo fails to capture the leader of Mexico’s most dangerous drug cartel and loses an Oregon crew member in the process, he’s determined to get revenge. Little does he know that the explosion he just narrowly escaped was merely the latest flash of violence from a machine of war that has existed for decades, dating from the bloodiest episode in Armenia’s history.

Here is the kind of authentically detailed epic novel that has become Louis L’Amour’s hallmark. It is the compelling story of US Air Force major Joe Mack, a man born out of time. When his experimental aircraft is forced down in Russia and he escapes a Soviet prison camp, he must call upon the ancient skills of his Indian forebears to survive the vast Siberian wilderness.

Texas Ranger Rory Yates is not keen for hero status. But it's unavoidable once his girlfriend, country singer Willow Dawes, writes a song about his bravery. Rory escapes his newfound fame when he's sent to the remote West Texas town of Rio Lobo, a municipality with two stoplights. And now, according to the chief of police, it has one too many Texas Rangers. Rio Lobo Detective Ariana Delgado is the one who requested Rory and the only person who believes a local councilwoman's seemingly accidental death is a murder. Then, Rory begins to uncover a tangle of small-town secrets.

Tell Sackett was no ladies’ man, but he could spot trouble easily enough. And Dorinda Robiseau was the kind of trouble he wanted to avoid at any time - even more so when he had 30 pounds of gold in his saddlebags and a long way to travel. But when she begged him for safe passage to Los Angeles, Sackett reluctantly agreed. Now he’s on a perilous journey through the most brutal desert on the continent, traveling with a companion he doesn’t trust...and headed for a confrontation with a deadly gunman who also bears the name of Sackett.

For thousands of years, the lonely canyon knew only wind and rain, wild animals, and an occasional native hunter. Then a trapper found a chunk of gold, and everything changed overnight. In six days, a town called Confusion appeared... and on the seventh it could disappear, consumed by the flames of lawlessness and violence. On one side are those who understand only brute force. On the other are men who want law and order but are ready to use a noose to achieve their ends.

He was etched by the desert's howling winds, a big, broad-shouldered man who knew the ways of the Apache and the ways of staying alive. She was a woman alone raising a young son on her own on a remote Arizona ranch. And between Hondo Lane and Angie Lowe was the warrior Vittoro, whose people were preparing to rise against the white men. Now the pioneer woman, the gunman, and the Apache warrior are caught in a drama of love, war, and honor.

When Duncan McKaskel decided to move his family west, he knew he would face dangers, and he was prepared for them. He knew about the exhausting terrain, and he was expecting the punishing elements. What he worried about was having to use violence against other men - men who would follow him and try to steal the riches that he didn't even possess.

Filled with exciting tales of the frontier, the chronicle of the Sackett family is perhaps the crowning achievement of one of our greatest storytellers. In Treasure Mountain, Louis L'Amour delivers a robust story of two brothers searching to learn the fate of their missing father, and finding themselves in a struggle just to stay alive.

When Tom Chantry comes west to buy cattle, he quickly runs into trouble. During a drunken scuffle in a bar, Dutch Akin challenges Chantry to a gunfight. Leaving town rather than face Akin, Chantry is quickly branded a coward. Later, when hiring men to take his herd to the railroad, Chantry faces a dilemma: No one wants to make the long, dangerous ride with a leader of questionable courage. So when French Williams, a shrewd and ruthless cattleman, makes Chantry an offer, Tom reluctantly accepts his unusual terms: Tom must remain with the drive from start to finish.

Crispin Mayo was a reckless young brawler who’d left his tiny fishing village for the vast American frontier. Headed west to join a railroad construction crew, he came upon an isolated station - and a mystery. The shack was abandoned, but fresh blood spattered the floor, and the telegraph was clicking away unattended. When Mayo stepped inside and put a hand on the telegraph key, he had no way of knowing the course of his life would change forever.

Warrior, lover, and scholar Kerbouchard is a daring seeker of knowledge and fortune bound on a journey of enormous challenge, danger, and revenge. Across Europe, over the Russian steppes, and through the Byzantine wonders of Constantinople, Kerbouchard is thrust into the treacheries, passions, violence, and dazzling wonders of a magnificent time.

In The Rustlers of West Fork, the quick-thinking, fast-shooting cowpuncher heads west to deliver a fortune in bank notes to his old friend, Dick Jordan. When he arrives at the Circle J, he discovers that the rancher and his daughter, Pam, are being held prisoner by a desperate band of outlaws led by the ruthless Avery Sparr and his partner Arnold Soper. Even if Hopalong Cassidy can free Jordan and Pam, he will have to lead them across rough and untamed Apache country, stalked by the outlaws who have vowed to gun him down.

The Clayborne brothers were a rough gang of street urchins - until they found an abandoned baby girl in a New York City alley, named her Mary Rose, and headed to Blue Belle, Montana, to raise her to be a lady. They became a family - held together by loyalty and love, if not blood - when suddenly a stranger threatened to tear them apart.

Football has come to the ancient city of Ankh-Morpork. And now the wizards of Unseen University must win a football match without using magic...so they're in the mood for trying everything else. To do so, they recruit an unlikely group of players: Trev, a street urchin with a talent for kicking a tin can; Glenda, the night chef who makes a mean pie; Juliet, the kitchen hand turned world's greatest fashion model; and the mysterious Mr Nutt, who has something powerful, and dark, locked away inside him.

Time is a resource. Everyone knows it has to be managed. You mess with it at your peril. You can let it move fast or slowly, but what you mustn't do is allow it to stop. The Monks of History have the glamorous job of time management in the Discworld. They store it and pump it from the places where it's wasted (like underwater—how much time does a codfish need?) to places like cities, where there's never enough time. But the construction of the world's first truly accurate clock starts a race against, well, time for Lu Tze and his apprentice Lobsang Ludd.