Western Crime

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.

Annie Lakes has had the same recurring nightmare for years. Her heart pounding in her chest. A panicked voice, begging her to run faster. Her own bloodcurdling scream. But now Annie is starting to realize it's more than just a bad dream. She's starting to remember things about the night her cousin Jenny disappeared all those years ago. Things that make her believe her family was involved - and what they're hiding is much worse than she ever imagined. But she can't unravel this alone. She needs someone she can trust, someone like sexy Detective Mark Sutton.

Tales is a collection of six short stories by Montana author Dave Lloyd.

Spanning the years of the first great settlement of the west, The Removes tells the intertwining stories of 15-year-old Anne Cummins, frontierswoman Libbie Custer, and Libbie’s husband, the Civil War hero George Armstrong Custer. When Anne survives a surprise attack on her family’s homestead, she is thrust into a difficult life she never anticipated - living among the Cheyenne as both a captive and, eventually, a member of the tribe. Libbie, too, is thrown into a brutal, unexpected life when she marries Custer.

The seventh novel in the acclaimed Sean Stranahan mystery series: Scarecrows are appearing in the cliffs above the Smith River in Montana, and state investigator Harold Little Feather is trying to discover the culprit leaving the hay figures in the cliffs, with signs painted that read "No Smith River Mine - Not on My Watch." The event is related to a copper mine project that threatens the river, but his investigation takes an ominous turn when a little girl claims that a scarecrow chased her in the night.

The Man Who Moiled for Gold draws its title from the Robert W. Service poem: "The Cremation of Sam McGee". The poem tells of suffering, loneliness, frustration, and ultimately death. Charley Martin experienced all of these emotions along with love and success while becoming the man who moiled for gold. Charley Martin, in 1912, is found mining the hard rock of Butte, Montana. Years of breathing the fine quartz dust in the pits have given Charley silicosis. Discovery of this incurable condition, by the mine super, brought an abrupt change to the 69-year old miner's life.

It was a chance for a new beginning and a better life for a wagon train of hopefuls leaving the war-torn South to relocate in Kansas. Unfortunately, new enemies and old habits die hard, and the truth can come to mean very little. Out-manned and out-gunned, Ruben, Marion, and Homer put their lives on the line as they saddle up and fight for what is right on the Glory Trail.

On a cold November day in Amsterdam in 2004, the celebrated and controversial Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh was shot and killed by an Islamic extremist for making a movie that "insulted the prophet Mohammed." The murder sent shock waves across Europe and around the world. Shortly thereafter, Ian Buruma returned to his native land to investigate the event and its larger meaning as part of the great dilemma of our time.

When Deputy Sheriff Royce McCall responds to a break-in at his family's cabin, he doesn't expect the intruder to be beautiful Sophie Conway - in her nightgown! The last time he saw her, she wasn't wearing much else, although the details of their New Year's Eve encounter are sketchy at best. Then she admits that not only has she become a killer's target, but she also lied about carrying Royce's baby in order to escape an arranged marriage. With too many unanswered questions surrounding this woman he barely knows, Royce still vows to protect Sophie when the bullets start flying.

Tex Waco is the Texas oil billionaire that heads up a group of rich Texas vigilantes known as the Texas 12. A former business partner of Tex is kidnapped and held for ransom by a Mexican drug cartel in Oil Field, Texas. Tex; his two adopted sons, Kale and Ellis Baylock; and The General fly to Oil Field and begin to make their plans to bring the drug cartel to justice and take the cartel's money.

When U.S. marshal Wyatt McCabe tracks his target to a Texas ranch, he isn't the only one with Lyla Pearson in his sights. But Wyatt has a powerful reason for keeping the beautiful CSI director out of the line of fire-he may be the father of the child she's carrying. The mother-to-be doesn't know who to fear more-the gunmen surrounding her house, or the stranger claiming paternity of her in vitro baby. Holed up together at his family homestead, Lyla struggles to fight her attraction to the sinfully handsome lawman. But with a killer stalking them, it may tear their new family apart....

Outlaw Wes Cavanaugh knows that crime doesn't always pay - at least not much. That's why he and his partner, Mose, are willing to pay Jimmy Stock for information on a job that's guaranteed to pay off big. Jimmy's made a career of selling tips to bandits, but the job he sells Wes - a payroll train about to leave Omaha - requires more than information.

Small-town boys Caleb and Jake Boyd spend their days splitting logs and barely scraping by in the badlands of New Mexico. Caleb, a decorated war hero, wants to put his fighting days behind him, find a decent job, and start a quiet life with his new fiancée. But Jake is always dreaming bigger than he should, and when he stumbles across a large crop of marijuana hidden in the wilderness, he thinks he has finally hit the jackpot.

Provocations of the spirit world leave us no alternative but to welcome the modern Western prose of David Randall Shorey, and his story about the legendary anti-hero known as Mojave Miles. This tale tells us that the only war worth fighting is for the protection of wayward ladies and no-good horses! Never officially ordained as a vigilante, his vengeance on the Amargosa was accepted as having been handed down by sage angels.

Eli Singer, a rancher and poet in remote Eastern Montana, sees his life upended when a long-buried corpse - which turns out to be a murder victim from Eli's childhood - erodes out of a hillside on his property. This discovery forces Eli to turn inward to revisit the tragic events in his past that led to a life-changing moment of violence, while at the same time he must reach outside himself toward Chloe, a literary agent from New York whom he is falling in love with.

Years ago Marshal Asher Thrall had shot mad-dog killer Ben Sharkey. And Sharkey has just repaid the favor in spades. With a bullet still in his chest, Ash knows he's a walking dead man. But he's going to make sure Sharkey is one step ahead of him.

A well-known heart surgeon from Houston tells Tex that a mutual friend of theirs has an inoperable heart condition and their friend has gone to a stem cell clinic in Mexico to seek treatment. Their friend, Mr. Pittman, has been kidnapped and is being held for ransom. Tex calls his right hand man, The General, and soon Tex and his men and women are on the way to Mexico to give the criminals a lethal dose of .45-caliber Texas justice.

Lenora Whitaker never thought spending one night with U.S. Marshal Clayton Caldwell would put them in the crosshairs of a killer. Connected to a protective custody case gone awry, they are both attacked, leaving Clayton with a damaging case of amnesia and forcing Lenora to go on the run. After taking a bullet to save her life, Clayton is unable to remember Lenora or that he's the father of her baby. But the moment he tracks her down, it's clear the attraction is still there.

The hardworking single mother of young daughter, Joanna Brady still feels the acute pain of loneliness and loss, the hole that was left in her heart when her policeman husband was murdered. But Sheriff Brady is the law in Cochise County, and murder has shattered the small town's fragile peace. A local gun dealer has died violently, and his stock of high-powered weapons has been cleared out. When two more slayings follow soon after, suspicion falls upon rancher Alton Hosfield.

Tower is sent to the Wyoming boomtown of Big River, where a young preacher has been viciously murdered, his crucified body left in a small valley known as Killer’s Draw. When Tower and Bird arrive in town, it quickly becomes obvious that no one wants to talk about the preacher - not about his life or his death. Tower is disturbed by the townspeople’s silence, and Bird’s no help - she disappeared into the nearest saloon as soon as they got off the train.