Mystery Western Historical Fiction

In 1900 a steadfast and feisty young woman, Jocelyn Belle Royal, joins a mule drive to earn back her Kansas farm lost to the bank. Entanglements over the mules, outlaws, women’s suffrage, and a disagreement over the governor’s mansion test her mettle to the limit. Jocelyn can’t give up if "home" can ever again be more than a few belongings tied in a shawl - all that she owns.

Adair Stanton grew up in the peaceful hamlet known as North Western. While she ran barefoot through wildflowers, her family ran a prosperous inn on the stagecoach route. As an adult with a child of her own, Adair is ready to take her place at the inn. One of the guests, a man named Robert Fawn, is convinced he’ll find gold in the Mohawk River that flows through North Western. Everyone believes him to be daft. Then one day, Robert Fawn vanishes. Adair is convinced someone has harmed him for the gold. But who in her hometown would be so sinister?

This first episode of the Montana Brides introduces Violet, Iris, and Rose Kilburn, heiresses to the Kilburn family cattle fortune. Rocking Horse Ranch runs five thousand head of cattle, but all the ranch hands are getting old. The sisters need someone to run the ranch, so the eldest sister Violet hatches the idea of getting mail order husbands for the three of them. There’s only one problem; Cornell Pollard, the sisters’ guardian and the executor of their estate, doesn’t approve.

Brewster Ritter had a warning for Flintlock: Do not cross the Sabine River. Ritter, the so-called Baron of the Bayou, is a vicious crime king still seething because Flintlock killed one of his gunmen in a Texas dustup. But Flintlock has his own powerful reasons for crossing into the nightmarish swamp country from East Texas.

Barney Dwyer is a gentle giant who has yet to find a place in the world. Capturing two notorious outlaws has made a hero of him, so much so that rancher Robert Parmelee offers him a job on his ranch to put a stop to persistent rustling. Taking the job promises an income sufficient for Barney to marry his sweetheart. But this promise for the future falls into jeopardy when the outlaws escape, determined to kill Barney.

After five years of virtual banishment because he sold out his small outfit to the Middle Arizona Cattle Company, giving it a foothold on the Mesa Grande range, violent-tempered Joe Bonnyman is summoned back to Lodgepole by his father when it appears that a cattle war between the syndicate and the various rangers is imminent. During his short stay in town, Joe has an unpleasant meeting with Ed Merrill, the brother of a girl Joe had once courted.

Texas Ranger John Bonafide never thought he would get the chance to come face-to-face with the Japanese soldier who killed his son, but he was dead wrong. When the last drop of blood is spilled, who will be the hero, and who will be the villain?

When their wagon breaks down in the desert, Reverend Jon Keyes and his ailing wife, Lorna, find themselves at the mercy of blistering heat, punishing thirst, and circling buzzards. On the brink of death, they are rescued by Caleb Hobbs and his beguiling daughter, Deliverance, who take them to their home in San Melas. It's a strange little town, built to resemble the New England village they left behind.

Chip Chippendale met Ransom Barnes after the War Between the States, when the two cowboys drove a herd up from Texas together. But when Chip first laid eyes on Wyoming, he knew he was home, and the two friends split off on different trails. Each man went on to own his own ranch, but when Ransom's home is attacked and burned by a marauding band of Cheyenne warriors, he is faced with ruin - and makes matters worse by gunning down the Cheyenne leader's son.

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.

What is truth? For 19 years, Joshua Webb has been asking that question in the pages of his newspaper, The Paradise Ledger. He's been called a madman, a lunatic, and an anarchist, but now he has stumbled upon a story so huge that it could shake the United States to its very foundation. The source of the trouble is Boston Corbett, the man who shot John Wilkes Booth.

With outlaws wrecking havoc left and right, a cow town in Texas is on the brink of becoming a ghost town. That's when it's time to call in Chicago-based Pinkerton agent Ash Tallman and his partner Vivian Valentine. Going undercover as a handsome, charming drifter, Ash is always ready with his gun and popular with the ladies. And the lovely, vivacious Viv plays the role of a fervent evangelist, offering salvation with the promise of a sweeter reward to any sinner who can give her clues.

Twister Malone and Chuckaluck Thompson are making their way through a West Texas canyon when they smell death. Finally, the two emerge onto the mesa, where they encounter the site of a massacre. A whole family of deer lies dead around a small pond, their skeletons bleached by the Texas sun. Someone has poisoned the water hole. Then a rider comes around the corner, rifle in hand, and gets the drop on Twister and Chuckaluck.

McCray is a bounty hunter who specializes in hunting Mystik criminals. Spenser Townshend is a Mystik conman who uses magic to commit crimes. Together, they stumble upon the mystery of Whisper Falls - a town that ceased to exist a dozen years ago - and a gang of outlaws straight out of hell. In a town where nearly everyone has their secrets and nothing is what it seems, McCray and Townshend must join forces and, along with the local sheriff, a bevy of beautiful saloon girls, and a skeptical frontier doctor, put down the supernatural threat.

The gunman simply known as McKibbon, a legend in the mob wars of the early twentieth century has slipped into an uncomfortable retirement in unlikely Pittsburgh. But it is 1936 and America and in the midst of the depression the East's best young men have moved away seeking work so an old adversary, Pittsburgh mobster Edgar McFaul, has a job for him.

Leigh Hawthorne, a widow and local farmer in Tucker Springs, receives an unusual letter from a man out west who wants to marry a woman with ranching expertise. Could this solve all of Leigh’s problems? Hoping to find a better life, Leigh embarks on a journey to Chance City, Oklahoma. Fired for breaking Pinkerton rules, former detective Cyrus Decker just wants to live a quiet life as a cattle rancher. The problem is that he knows nothing about ranching - and his bank account shows it.

Eighteen-year-old Lee Thompson has a chip on his shoulder and a mission in his heart to save his dad, an aging sheriff who’s lost control of his town. Old Diehard’s lost control of his town, and it seems every outcast and outlaw west of the Mississippi is on the prowl in Wolf River, Montana. Now Lee’s come all the way from Texas to stand up for his father, a man who hasn’t seen him since he was a boy and who doesn’t know him from Adam.

Mart Kincaid may be the fastest gun in the state, but it does him no good - because his gun and his life are not his own. They belong to Gar Malone, the King of Concha Basin, a ruthless rancher driven by his thirst for power, wealth, and conquest. Now Gar has set his sights on the Singing Canyon spread - the richest land in the basin - and he commands Kincaid to run its true owners off. If not, he threatens to reveal a dark secret that could ruin Kincaid's brother.

Forged in the hot sun and sand of the Arizona desert, Chinook Shannon is as tough as they come. But Chinook is far from home—in the north country of Montana—and facing a challenge as big as the territory itself. Following his grandfather’s suspicious death, he’s come to Montana to claim his inheritance—the family’s cattle ranch. But the territory’s crawling with bandits and bankers, and they all want a piece of Chinook’s land.

Saddle tramp Petey McGuire doesn’t have much to live for. The trail in front of him stretches out long and hot, and there’s no end in sight. He’s been beaten down, beaten up, and kicked around so long, he’d run away from his own shadow if he could. But there’s one fight he can’t run from - the fight against hunger. Petey needs a job quick, before he drops dead in the dust. But the only way to get one is to act cool and talk tough - in other words, become the exact opposite of Petey McGuire.