Literary Fiction Western

After a man is murdered during a trip on the Switzerland Trail of America railroad, police officer Harry McBride sorts through the suspects among the passengers in the hope of finding the killer before the train returns to Boulder.

Set on the high prairies of Montana, in small towns scattered across vast landscapes, the distances in Broken Field are both insurmountable and deeply internalized. Life is dusty and hard, and men are judged by their labor. Women have to be tougher yet. That’s what sixteen-year-old Josie Frehse learns as she struggles to meet the expectations of her community while fumbling with her own desires.

Spanning the years of the first great settlement of the west, The Removes tells the intertwining stories of 15-year-old Anne Cummins, frontierswoman Libbie Custer, and Libbie’s husband, the Civil War hero George Armstrong Custer. When Anne survives a surprise attack on her family’s homestead, she is thrust into a difficult life she never anticipated - living among the Cheyenne as both a captive and, eventually, a member of the tribe. Libbie, too, is thrown into a brutal, unexpected life when she marries Custer.

If things are quiet in the little town of Sweetwater, Marshal Fred Hitch sees no reason to make waves. But when Tyree Johnson shows up, Fred's relaxed nature is put to the test. At 15 years old, Tyree is a tough-as-nails bounty hunter with no patience for anyone calling him "boy." He's come to apprehend a killer who escaped from Cheyenne and has been hiding in plain sight in Sweetwater. Fred must ride with Tyree and his prisoner all the way to Cheyenne. The unlikely pair has a rough trail ahead of them, and as tough as Tyree is, he has some lessons to learn about the evil men do - and how to survive it.

When young Jarret Pekoe aims to bring a band of violent border-jumpers to justice, his sister hires rifleman Lem Beauchamp to scare some sense into him. But when trouble arrives, they must work together to defeat the outlaws once and for all. Jarrett Pekoe cares about two things: his ranch and his family. So when rustlers kill his kin and burn his land to the ground, Jarrett won't rest until the men responsible have their necks caught in the hangman's rope.

In this moving sequel to Big Rock Candy Mountain, Bruce Mason returns to Salt Lake City, not for his aunt's funeral but to encounter after 45 years the place he fled in bitterness. A successful statesman and diplomat, Mason had buried his awkward and lonely childhood and sealed himself off from the thrills and torments of adolescence to become a figure who commanded international respect.

The legacy of legendary Western author Ralph Compton can be heard in the explosive tales penned by Joseph A. West. A ruthless murderer known as the Fat Man is terrorizing Green Meadow, Oklahoma, which sits over a massive store of black gold. The Fat Man will kill anyone who stands in his way. But gambler Chauncey Drake and Pinkerton agent Reuben Withers aren’t the kind to back down easy, and the stars are aligning for a showdown of epic proportions.

Ron Hansen has won an Award in Literature from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters for his rich writing and poetic style. Atticus begins in the vein of a contemporary western. As it unfolds, it includes an intriguing murder mystery and a dramatic parable of the prodigal son. For years, prosperous Colorado rancher Atticus Cody has tried to understand his rootless son, Scott, who is now living a marginal life in Mexico.

Two decades after the Civil War, Josephine Marcus, the teenage daughter of Jewish immigrants, is lured west with the promise of marriage to Johnny Behan, one of Arizona's famous lawmen. She leaves her San Francisco home to join Behan in Tombstone, Arizona, a magnet for miners (and outlaws) attracted by the silver boom. Though united by the glint of metal, Tombstone is plagued by divided loyalties: between Confederates and Unionists, Lincoln Republicans and Democrats.

USA Today best-selling author Ralph Cotton pens gun-blazing tales evoking the glory days of the Old West. In City of Bad Men, Lawrence “Fast Larry” Shaw wants nothing more than peace and quiet after miraculously surviving a gunshot wound to the head. But his hopes for tranquility don’t last long. A powerful businessman needs help defending his mining operation from the likes of the Cut-Jaws Gang, and he thinks Larry is just the man for the job.

In the lawless frontier town of Brownsville, Texas, a boy and his parents ride a carriage down a crowded street - when a kill-crazy band of kidnappers strike suddenly. Now, to rescue his family, veteran rancher Charley Sunday cobbles together a ragtag posse that starts with an outlaw and an Indian - and picks up recruits, weapons, and a lot of trouble all the way down into Mexico.

Former army scout Jack Gregory returns from battle to a homestead in ruins. A wanted man with no place to go, he chooses an even deadlier career - as a scout for General George Armstrong Custer. Under a new name, Jack serves bravely in the Seventh Cavalry. When Custer's disastrous leadership ends in devastating slaughter, Jack sets off to forge his own destiny. Winning a small ranch in a card game, he hopes to settle down and live a peaceful life.

A classic work of Texas fiction from M.E.M. Davis, Under the Man-Fig was first published in1895. Part romance, part satire, and part realism, this entertaining novel takes place in the fictional town of Thornham on the Texas Gulf Coast. Under the sprawling branches of the ancient man-fig tree in the town square, all the male gossips of Thornham sit around and spin their colorful yarns - and in so doing, unwittingly weave a folk history of the Old South. This important work resounds with a reading from narrator Sally Darling.

Racism can linger in the strangest of places. Sometimes, even within yourself. For Clara Lacroix, the past was the place she chose to dwell. That's where her memories of Boone, and the life they shared, resided. But for Joe Black Hawk, the past was a painful mix of a fading heritage he didn't want to lose, and a string of mistakes he'd just as soon forget.

There's no taming Billy Blanchard. He's cut from the same rough cloth as his father, Jacob, the man who built the town of Black Horse Creek from nothing. Jacob takes pride in Billy's lawless, wild ways. But when the boy returns home with a stolen horse, having just killed a US Marshal, Jacob knows trouble will be coming. Called in on special assignment, enigmatic former deputy marshal Grayson is asked to find Billy. The marshals would prefer to have him brought in alive. But Grayson knows Billy.

Sheepman Abel McKenzie and cattleman Zack Rainford were once the best of friends, but are now, in 1887 Montana Territory, mortal enemies. Their escalating feud threatens to throw the people of Meriwether County into a bloody range war. Three ranchers have already been killed, and the investigation into the homicides received only cursory review. One of those three men was McKenzie's employee. Deputy United States Marshal Merlin Fanshaw is sent to investigate and enforce the law.

Bass Reeves was a man of color and a deputy United States marshal. For thirteen years he was aided by Dave Adams, also a deputy marshal, and a white man. Bennie Reeves was Bass Reeves' son and a barber, a good one, before he shot down his unarmed wife who had been cheating on him and then disappeared. U.S. Marshal Leo E. Bennett, known as Doc, had reservations about handing the warrant to Bass Reeves to be served against Bennie. But for Bass there was no reservation...

Calvin Sidey - steely, hardened, with his own personal code - is one of the last cowboys. It's the 1960s, and he's living off the grid in a trailer on the prairie when his adult son, Bill, seeks his help. A mostly absentee father and grandfather, Calvin nevertheless agrees to stay with his grandchildren for a week. He decamps for his son's house in the small town where he once was a mythic figure, and soon enough problems arise: A boy's attentions to 17-year-old Ann are increasingly aggressive, and a group of reckless kids portend danger for 11-year-old Will.

Raw frontier action is epitomized in Lee Porfilo. With a penchant for settling his problems with his fists, Porfilo is always in trouble. And trouble comes to stay when he beats a rich man's son. Now he has an enemy for life. Framed for murder and sentenced to the penitentiary, he is saved by Tex Cummins' small steel saw and heads for the mountains.

When Corporal Elijah Russell's superb horsemanship is revealed during a firefight in northern Iraq, the young Army Ranger is assigned to an elite Special Forces unit preparing to stage a secret mission in eastern Afghanistan. Elijah's task is to train the Green Berets - fiercely loyal to their enigmatic commander, Captain Wynne - to ride the horses they will use to execute this mission through treacherous mountain terrain. But as the team presses farther into enemy territory, the nature of their operation only becomes more mysterious, and Wynne's charismatic power takes on a darker cast.