Mystery Western Historical Fiction

Territorial Marshals Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch are back in Appaloosa, where their work enforcing the law has been exceptionally quiet. All that is about to change. An ominous storm rolls in, and along with it a band of night riders with a devious scheme, who show up at the Rio Blanco camp, where a three-hundred-foot bridge is under construction.

In 1866, the border between the U.S. and Mexico is a hotbed of gunrunners, mercenaries, and the Emperor of Mexico's spies, saboteurs and double agents. On top of which, West Texas is plagued by Comanche warriors. Into this mix ride two massive gangs of the meanest, most kill-happy bunch of bloodthirsty ravagers to ever draw a breath. Sam Heller and Johnny Cross have got the marauders in their sights, but they aren't ready for the slaughter and destruction the raiders unleash on Hangtree County.

Charley Sunday, a sensible, sober-minded Texas grandfather, imparts the American Cowboy legacy to his only grandchild as he and several of his grizzled cronies concoct a 1,000-mile longhorn cattle drive across 21st Century America. Four leathery cowboys, one insightful Indian, two strong-willed women, a two-gun oddball, a dog, and a little boy make an unlikely team as they trek from Colorado to Texas, continually running up against the forces of corruption.

On the trail to Hangtree, a gang of bandits give chase to a teenage gunslinger. Young Bill is bracing for the end when the crack of a Winchester scatters the bandits. Sam Heller, Hangtree lawman, has saved another life. And Bill will beg Heller to save one more.... Bill rode in from East Texas, where Cullen Baker, the original quick-draw artist, fights a life-and-death battle with a corrupt robber baron for control of the Torrent River. Bill came seeking help from Cullen’s old pal, Johnny Cross, who agrees to ride east to lend a bullet or two.

Robber baron Clifton Satterlee is in greedy pursuit of a coveted piece of land in the New Mexico Territory. He plans to wrest the timber-rich hills from the Tua Pueblo and then populate the town with his own subservient labor force. Many will suffer as his thirst for blood equals his lust for wealth and power. But Saterlee has overlooked one mighty obstacle - the iron justice and deadly aim of the legendary mountain man Smoke Jensen. In triumph blood will be spilled....

J. A. Johnstone - niece and former writing partner of the late Western legend William W. Johnstone - carries on her uncle’s legacy with this second book from her Loner series. After his wife is murdered, Conrad “Kid Morgan” Browning hunts down the men responsible - then visits his wife’s grave in New Mexico. There, he is shocked to discover his ex-fiancée waiting for him - along with armed backup.

In the best-selling novels of William W. Johnstone, mountain man Smoke Jensen is a legend. Now, Johnstone presents the adventures of Smoke's long-lost brother Luke, who was reported killed during the Civil War. The war is over and Luke is very much alive, his soul forged by the violence he witnessed on the battlefields. His job is now tracking down the worst outlaws - by any means necessary.

Big Max Higgins ran the outlaw town of Hell's Creek up in the north Montana Rockies...and he decided to include the nearby town of Barlow in his cutthroat operation. What he didn't know was that Smoke Jensen was there with his wife, visiting relatives. It didn't take Smoke long to rout out the lot of them with angry fists and blazing guns...but Smoke didn't count on Big Max doing something as daring, desperate, and stupid as kidnapping his wife - and demanding the town of Barlow itself as ransom.

Big Red and Old Red Amlingmeyer’s dream has come true: The Sherlock Holmes-worshiping cowboy brothers are finally in business as professional detectives. But their fledgling A.A. Western Detective Agency faces a few challenges. Their partner, Col. Crowe, is almost as cantankerous and secretive as Old Red himself. The colonel’s daughter, Diana, insists on tagging along for the Amlingmeyers’ first assignment, which lands them smack dab in the middle of a range war - with Big Red and Old Red expected to shoot it out with rustlers rather than rustle up clues and solve a mystery.

Appaloosa, the hometown of Territorial Marshals Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch, continues to prosper, but with prosperity comes a slew of new trouble: carpetbaggers, gamblers, migrants, peddlers, drifters, thieves, and whores, all boiling in a cauldron of excess and greed. And there's a new menace in town: a wealthy, handsome easterner - and the owner of Appaloosa's new casino - Boston Bill Black.

Life on the straight and narrow is easier said than done for a pair of crooks like Jimmy "Slash" Braddock and Melvin "Pecos Kid" Baker. But these reprobates are doing their damnedest to make an honest go of it. They've managed to safely deliver a church organ to a mountain parish when their sometime employer - Chief US Marshal Luther T. "Bleed-'m-So" Bledsoe - recruits them for a job only fools would take.

Big for his age, young and impressionable drifter Charlie Chilton is taken in by the gruff leader of a gang of small-time crooks and ne'er do wells who sees something of himself in kindly, wayward Charlie. But Grady Haskell, ambitious ruffian with a shady past, soon joins the gang, convincing Charlie's friends to pursue a big score. Charlie fails to thwart the crime, and the heist turns bloody. As the only gang member caught alive, Big Charlie will soon swing for the crimes. He makes a daring escape, determined to track down Haskell and the gang and prove his innocence.

There's something rotten in Wyoming, and it's not just the smell of cow pies - the first whiff is coming off the Laramie County Cattlemen. Right off the bat, Duff notices something odd: no small-time ranchers allowed. It's big leaguers only. And none are bigger than Brad Houser, owner of the sprawling Twin Peaks ranch. He's up in arms over the small-timers claiming the unbranded mavericks who escape their herds. Which is perfectly legal. Houser has a plan to stop these former cowboys from taking their runaways. For $1,000, Houser will make the small ranchers go away - six feet under.

The Lindsay family has come west hoping to help the father, John, recover from an illness. When they arrive, they are induced to purchase Spanish Peaks Ranch, an abandoned United States military post surrounded by mountains. It seems like a perfect place to settle into their new life as ranchers. As they soon find out, though, this deserted fort is equally suited for both protection and imprisonment.

Colorado! Some came for freedom; others, to build a new life. But in 1858, when gold is discovered in the Colorado region, thousands of desperate men and women descend on Denver like a hungry swarm. Homesteaders struggle to hold onto their claims, but none are immune to the effects of gold fever. Wagon train veteran Chet Harris risks his life to repeat the success he found in the California gold fields. Mineral expert Luke Brando masquerades as a banker, while his wife hides a yearning for riches of her own. And young Cathy Blake discovers just how far she’ll go to defeat a voluptuous rival.

The Lovely Bones meets the wild, Wild West in this haunting tale inspired by a true story. Pregnant out of wedlock, 16-year-old Annie Moore is sent to live at a convent for fallen women. When the nuns take her baby, Annie escapes, determined to find a way to be reunited with her daughter. But few rights or opportunities are available to a woman in the 1860s, and after failing to find a respectable job, she resorts to prostitution in order to survive.

The year is 1878, peak of the Texas cattle trade. The place is Dodge City, Kansas, a saloon-filled cow town jammed with liquored-up adolescent cowboys and young Irish hookers. Violence is random and routine, but when the burned body of a mixed-blood boy named Johnnie Sanders is discovered, his death shocks a part-time policeman named Wyatt Earp. And it is a matter of strangely personal importance to Doc Holliday, the frail 26-year-old dentist who has just opened an office at No. 24, Dodge House.

A rollicking novel about Nat Love, an African-American cowboy with a famous nickname: Deadwood Dick. Young Willie is on the run, having fled his small Texas farm when an infamous local landowner murdered his father. A man named Loving takes him in and trains him in the fine arts of shooting, riding, reading, and gardening. When Loving dies, Willie re-christens himself Nat Love, in tribute to his mentor, and heads west.

After hunting down the notorious desperado Alejandro Vasquez, Territorial Marshal Virgil Cole and Deputy Everett Hitch return him to San Cristóbal to stand trial. No sooner do they remand him into custody than a major bank robbery occurs and the lawmen find themselves tasked with another job: investigating the robbery of the Comstock Bank, recovering the loot, and bringing the criminals to justice.

Dover Station, Montana, is no place for a lawman. A sheriff's badge ain't worth a nickel here - unless you've got the bullets to back it up. When he signed up to be sheriff of this dirty little boomtown, Aaron Mackey knew he was asking for trouble. Once, when Mackey was the US marshal for the whole Montana Territory, he swore no job could get any harder. But that was before he took down a few of the bank-robbing Hancock gang in Dover Station - and incurred the wrath of the gang's maniacal matriarch, Mad Nellie Hancock.