Mystery Western Historical Fiction

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.

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.

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.

Lonzo Greer and his Black Moon gang are leaving a blood-soaked trail on the unforgiving desert sands of the Arizona Territory, and they've got a personal vendetta against ranger Sam Burrack. But, with the lethal precision of his bonehandled Colt, Sam's as formidable as any of the Black Moon boys, and he's got an equally deadly partner in ranger Hadley Jones.

Arizona Ranger Sam Burrack's on the trail of a gang of bank robbers, a mission that's led him right into the path of a raging wildfire. As the pines around him go up in flames, Burrack is determined to catch the murderous Cheyenne Kid and his gang and recover the money they stole. But Burrack isn' t the only one with a case against the Kid. When Gilley Maclaine overhears the Cheyenne Kid reveal his plans to kill her, she swipes the money he promised her and gives him a swift kick on her way out the door.

U. S. Marshal James Boutwell stumbles upon the body of a young woman while delivering a prisoner to Dallas. Boutwell gets himself appointed to investigate the murder only to realize that he has bit off more than he can chew. There are several suspects, but no clear cut evidence to connect the murder to anyone. No one has a clear motive, but the woman is dead. Then there is another young woman killed in Fort Worth, adding to the mystery.

The Osage Indians lost their ancestral freedom on a windswept reservation in Oklahoma. Now, in the Roaring Twenties, the land is spewing black gold; oil has been found, and every Osage owns a share of the rights. Soon Osage tribal members are being killed for their oil royalties while a corrupt sheriff turns his back on the murders, Special Agent Frank Gordon organizes and undercover operation while working openly with frontier legend US marshal Will Proctor.

In the inhospitable lands of the Utah Territory, during the winter of 1888, thirty-seven-year-old Deborah Tyler waits for her husband, Samuel, to return home from his travels as a wheelwright. It is now the depths of winter, Samuel is weeks overdue, and Deborah is getting worried. Deborah lives in Junction, a tiny town of seven Mormon families scattered along the floor of a canyon, and she earns her living by tending orchards and making work gloves. Isolated by the red-rock cliffs that surround the town, she and her neighbors live apart from the outside world.

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.