Literature Dramatized

It is 1944. A message from Paris warns Allied Intelligence of something big in the works - something which might have serious implications for D-Day. The only way to get more information from the agent in Paris - now closely watched by the Gestapo - is to send in a personal courier. Russian émigré Michael Gallatin is picked for the job. In retirement as a secret agent since a grisly episode in North Africa, Gallatin is parachuted into occupied France, on a mission which will take him to the festering heart of the Third Reich on the scent of doomsday.

Nurse Mercy Lynch is elbows deep in bloody laundry at a war hospital in Richmond, Virginia, when Clara Barton comes bearing bad news: Mercy’s husband has died in a POW camp. On top of that, a telegram from the West Coast declares that her estranged father is gravely injured, and he wishes to see her. Mercy sets out toward the Mississippi River. Once there, she’ll catch a train over the Rockies. When Mercy finally arrives in St. Louis, the only Tacoma-bound train is pulled by a terrifying Union-operated steam engine called the Dreadnought.

Stories of the Trader and his convoy of war wagons endure in the badlands of post-holocaust America. A dealer in Deathlands' most precious commodities - weapons and fuel - Trader takes note of a young Ryan Cawdor. Surrounded in myth and rumor, Trader sets into motion the beginnings of legend at a place called Virtue Lake...At Spearpoint, the ultimate redoubt housing a valuable cache of predark technology, two opposing wills clash. Levi Shabazz intends to carve his own empire out of the vast wastelands, but the Trader intends to thwart him and end his bloody siege of power.

Werewolf by Max Brand in Western Story Magazine (12/18/26) involves just such an inward journey for Christopher Royal, who is convinced he is a coward and flees a confrontation with Harry Main, who is a gunfighter. There comes a time in this story - when Christopher encounters the aged Indian, the old wise man - that the terrain shimmers with the multiple affinities of meaning conjured by the unconscious, which Vergil once sought to capture within an image both awesome and sinister: numina magna deum [the great divine power of a god].

Jane Candia Coleman is a natural storyteller whose characters come from the lands between the southwestern valleys of Arizona and the Gila Mountains of New Mexico. The night Billy the Kid died is hauntingly depicted in "Corrido for Billy". "Lady Flo" is a memoir, based on historical fact, of the black wife of an Irish nobleman. "Moving On" depicts a young girl abandoned by her family who finds her way with an itinerant Jewish peddler. And "Are You Coming Back, Phin Montana?" is the winner of the 1995 Spur Award for Best Western Short Fiction.

In Massacre at Goliad, tensions mount between Mexican authorities and American newcomers. Revolution is in the air, something Thomas Buckalew welcomes but his brother Joshua fears, since Joshua is in love with a Mexican girl. The story touches on the immortal battle of the Alamo but centers on the infamous Goliad massacre, and ultimately the decisive battle of San Jacinto, which made Texas an independent republic.

How does a kid who can barely ride a horse, and who’s better with his fists and a team of mules than a six-shooter, think he can track and kill the most notorious killer on the Plains? Simple: Cuno Massey's thirst for revenge runs deep. Deeper than his skills. But when Rolf Anderson and Sammy Spoon killed the young man’s step-mother and his father, nothing would stand in young Cuno’s way.

Reeling from the sudden death of his wife, Daniel Dixon returns to Wyoming’s Powder River country to start anew. It’s the end of the 19th century and the Indians are gone. The growing city of Buffalo, just a stone’s throw from the ruins of Fort Phil Kearny, seems a peaceful place to start a medical practice and raise his sons, Harry and Cal, and his willful daughter, Lorna. But the peace Dixon seeks eludes him. Johnson County is soon engulfed in a bloody range war that will draw in the Dixon family in ways he could never have imagined.

Fort Kearney, Nebraska is the gateway to the west for a new breed of pioneers. Civil War veterans and widows, card sharps and Indian agents, and drifters — they arrive every day hoping to forge their destiny. Colonel Henry B. Carrington of the US Calvary is assigned the unenviable task of securing a trio of forts in the dangerous Dakota Territory. At his command is a rising young officer Mark Reynolds and his spirited bride Rose, who longs for danger and excitement.

After years of warfare, humanity has gained the upper hand and has pushed the Fhrey to the edge of their homeland but no farther. Now comes the pivotal moment. Persephone’s plan to use the stalemate to seek peace is destroyed by an unexpected betrayal that threatens to hand victory to the Fhrey and leaves a loved one in peril.

He was 15 when he killed his first man. Before his murderous ways ended, Hardin killed 42 men in cold blood - one, the legend goes, because he snored too loudly. From then on, John Wesley Hardin stayed true to his calling, killing man after man after man, spending most of his life being pursued by both local lawmen and federal troops.

The winter around Cheyenne Wyoming that year was devastating killing both people and livestock. John Henry Cole was three miles out of town on his small ranch waiting out the storm that was quickly killing his cattle and horses and starting to feel a little crazy himself. Everything he owned was dying before his eyes and there wasn't anything that he could do about it. His dreams of a settled life were as dead as everything else.

As a warrior, Kane served the lords of the villes, but on a punitive expedition he'd caught a forbidden glimpse of the future that made him an outcast. In exile with him are Brigid Baptiste, golden keeper of the archives, and Grant, an only friend in a hostile land. Together, they've sworn to uncover the secrets of the world's fate...as written in its dark past.

Hawk and Fisher, captains of the City Guard of Haven, are assigned to be bodyguards for a Reform candidate during an election campaign. Candidate James Adamant is beset from all sides by enemies - political, personal and supernatural. Keeping him alive long enough to count the ballots could cost the lives of both Hawk and Fisher, in a deadly game where the winner takes all.

When a diabolical superfoe acquires a superlaser that uses hypercolor to control emotion, he throws the world into a kaleidoscope of deadly mood swings. CURE goes on red alert. And if things aren't black enough, a rival nation has seen the mind-blowing potential of beaming mood-altering color from satellites...and rendering entire nations defenseless.

Five centuries after nuclear war laid waste to the land, the future of humankind may rest with the fishes. John Rourke, Natalia Anastasia Tiemerovna and a band of Marines battle tyranny beneath the sea to defend liberty and justice under the stars.

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.

For Chet Byrnes, building a ranching empire means adding new land, hiring good men, finding water, and trying new breeds of cattle. But outlaws and Tuscon's idle rich want to take it all away - and Arizona just may be too lawless to stop it. So while the Byrnes family expands its reach, Chet must do his job hunting down outlaws on either side of the border.

Caitlin Strong is a fifth-generation Texas Ranger, proud to wear the badge of her father and grandfather - until a deadly shoot-out along the Mexican border causes her to question her calling. Five years later, Caitlin is still trying to purge herself of guilt from the day that ended her Ranger career. But a shattering discovery will reopen old wounds, and Caitlin's renewed investigation into the truth behind the bloody desert firefight uncovers a terrifying plot that reaches into every home and threatens the very core of the country.

Jeston Nash bears a striking resemblance to his cousin Jesse Woodson James of Clay County Missouri. After killing a Yankee soldier in self-defense, Jeston meets his cousins, Jesse and Frank, and joins them to fight in Quantrill's guerilla forces. Later, after the war, he rides with the James-Younger gang as they invent their special brand of bank and train robbery. All the while, Jeston seeks vengeance against Daniel Zanone of the Free Kansas Militia - the man responsible for the death of his child.