Mystery Western Historical Fiction

Ike McAlister returns home to Kansas after the Civil War, his soul bruised and empty. Worse, his parents have been killed by Quantrill's raiders who are still on the loose. No stranger to death and destruction, he vows to run the killers down. A clue leads him to the high plains of Colorado, but when his sister, Sue, disappears from there, his world quickly spins out of control. In the midst of this turmoil, a feisty landlady sparks an attraction, the only good thing in Ike's life.

Young Gincy Tate's father is murdered before he can fulfill a contract to supply the Army with remounts. In order to pay his debts and save the ranch, she must make the sale in his place. Afraid the lien-holder, whom she suspects of being the murderer, will foreclose before June 7, 1883, she tells no one Morris Tate is dead. Instead, she says he is here, there, or elsewhere. Gincy hires two cowboys to help trail the herd to Fort Spokane.

Sheriff Cray Dawson's quick-draw reputation keeps most criminals away from his Texas town of Somos Santos. But it doesn't keep the motley Walker Gang away for long. Although they temporarily divert their bankrobbing plans to a neighboring town, they soon stumble upon a way to weaken him. But will a strategic kidnapping and an unexpected ally undermine Dawson's resolve to do what he must?

Bethany Silverton can't resist the challenge of charming a rough cowboy. But when she makes an innocent wager, unexpected results could turn a little flirtation into a lifetime of love. A sheltered preacher's daughter stakes her heart on love in this action-filled romance in the wild west of 1880s Montana.

A dying man, Hank Peyton, tells his son Jerry Peyton that, after a lifetime of evil deeds, his only gift to his son will be his extremely valuable gun called The Voice of La Paloma. When Jerry is wrongfully accused of horse thievery, a cunning sheriff blackmails Jerry into stealing the gun from his father in exchange for a clean slate, even though the sheriff has already found the real horse thief.

Black Jack Hollis was a daring outlaw before he was shot down. In the wake of his death, it's discovered that Hollis left behind an infant son. Elizabeth Cornish, coowner of the Cornish Ranch alongside her brother, Vance, takes it upon herself to raise the child as her own. Elizabeth names the boy Terry Colby and gives Terry a fictitious aristocratic background, believing the way the boy is raised will determine the man he will become. But Vance is convinced that Terry is destined to become an outlaw himself.

Mike Tower is a circuit rider, a traveling preacher charged with tending the lawless souls of the Wild West. Utterly fearless, he carries no gun, only the word of the Lord - and the shadowy mystery of a secret past. Sharpshooting, hard-drinking Bird Hitchcock yields to no man, but a woman's gotta work. And so she hires herself out as the circuit rider's gun hand, protecting him along the treacherous trail from Missouri westward. As they ride, a new mission rises out of the dust of the sin-soaked land.

Between the Indian Nations and Texas lies an area on the south side of the Red River that was once the winter camp for the likes of the notorious guerrillas William Clarke Quantrill, Bloody Bill Anderson and later, the James Gang - known as Delaware Bend.

Kent Conwell combines murder, mystery, and the lure of the West in The Last Way Station. Jake Slade and his partner, Three-Fingers Bent, arrive in a small Texas town with plans to start up a stagecoach way station. But when Bent is accused of murder, Slade's got to find the real culprit before his friend's day in the gallows arrives.

Laura Elliston and William Kindle are on the run - from the army and from every miscreant in the West eager to claim the $500 bounty for Laura's capture as their own. But the danger isn't just from those pursuing them. Laura and Kindle both have demons of their own and pasts that won't stay dead. Exhausted, scared, scarred, and surrounded by enemies, neither realizes the greatest danger is yet to come.

Lawrence Shaw still has the reputation as the fastest gun alive. But since the death of his beloved Rosa, his shots have come out of a bottle. Then a friend gets Shaw a job helping a widow with her ranch, and Fast Larry sees the glimmer of a second chance.

Susan Cameron, a young Missouri woman, arrives in Wyoming Territory determined to homestead on her own. Her nearest neighbors, Ellen Watson Averell and James “Jimmy” Averell, operate a small road ranch not far from the Oregon Trail on homestead land formerly grazed illegally by Albert Bothwell’s cattle. Ellen purchased a small herd of cattle and brand, but Bothwell claimed the Averells were operating a rural brothel and that Ellen took calves for her “favors.” Trouble haunts Susan, her veterinarian friend, Michael, and the Averells from the moment Susan attempts to take possession of her new homestead land, culminating in the hangings of both Ellen and Jimmy Averell by six prominent cattlemen, who then spread vicious lies in their controlled Cheyenne newspaper, calling Ellen “Cattle Kate.” The mystery deepens when the cattlemen are brought to trial and all the witnesses to the hangings have died or disappeared and Susan and Michael are kidnapped by hired gunmen...

Jeremy Walker is accused of killing his wife. The sheriff's sister, Kate Hammond, applies for the job as his housekeeper in order to try and find the proof they need to hang Jeremy. However, Kate never suspected she'd fall in love with the man. Her new mission is to find out who really killed Helen Walker to clear Jeremy's name. When the real killer is revealed, it sets Kate in a tailspin of grief and heartbreak.

St. Louis in 1880 is full of ghosts - mangled soldiers, tortured slaves, the innocent victims of war - and Jacob Tracy can see them all. Ever since Antietam, when he lay delirious among the dead and dying, Trace has been haunted by the country's restless spirits. The curse cost him his family, his calling to the church, and damn near his sanity. He stays out of ghost-populated cities as much as possible these days, guiding wagon trains west with his pragmatic and skeptical partner, Boz.

Before the Civil War, Argyle Dollarhyde had everything a man could ever want: a beautiful wife, three strong sons, and a prosperous stake in the booming cotton industry. But now Union troops have left the South in ruins - and Dollarhyde's life is in shambles. Refusing to fall prey to carpetbaggers, Dollarhyde gathers up his family and sets out for the one place a man can still live free: Texas. Where the natives are as dangerous as the land itself.

Drawn to a killing ground... Ten thousand dollars. That's the bounty on the head of the most hated man in Texas - the man Flintlock has been hired to guard. The crime was the brutal murder of a young schoolteacher. The verdict was not guilty for lack of evidence. And the suspected killer's first guard was murdered by a shotgun blast.

One of the bestselling novelists of the American West brings us a gripping tale of gold, greed, and vengeance.

In the spring of 1880, Steve Dancy travels to Prescott, Arizona, to gain control of a remarkable invention. But on his first night in the territorial capital, his friend, Jeff Sharp, is arrested for a midnight murder at Thumb Butte. Dancy launches a personal investigation to find the real murderer, only to discover that the whole town wanted the victim dead. For help, he turns to another old friend and associate, Captain Joseph McAllen of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency.

One murdered girl. One unknown killer. One legendary lawman. A lone man sits his horse atop a bluff near the southern Missouri border. There's a story in the country ahead of him. A dark tale of murdered girls and a killer not caught, of an old friend asking for help, and a letter from a frightened young mother that has arrived too late to save her daughter. A letter that now rests in this man's pocket.....

Ranger Burrack and Federal Marshal Summers must battle Arizona regulator Morgan Waite and his band of vigilantes. When Burrack and Summers apprehend Cold Devil's saloon owner Jack Spain, Spain offers $10,000 to anyone who frees him. Getting wind of Spain's reward, Waite and his posse bushwhack the lawmen and leave them for dead in a terrifying landslide. But blazing gunfire will soon heat up the town of Cold Devil.