Western Mystery

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.

Higbee, Colorado, population 147, is about to become a boomtown. The visionary General Wade Garrison is building a railroad to connect Higbee to the renowned Santa Fe Rail. But a rancher named Ike Clinton has his own selfish reasons for making sure these bands of steel go nowhere - and he’ll go to any lengths to derail Garrison’s plans. Falcon MacCallister owes a war-time debt to the General and answers the call to aid the man in his fight with the Clinton brood.

For renegades and pioneers, there is no place like Texas - as long as you have a gun and the guts to use it. Now, the Civil War is over. Carpetbaggers and scalawags rule Austin. Soldiers return to pillaged homes. Longhorns roam the wilds and the state is in chaos. Especially in a town called Hangtree. Sam Heller and Johnny Cross are Hangtree’s newest citizens: Heller is a former Yankee soldier, a deadly shot, and a believer in right from wrong.

Orphaned at the age of seven and adopted by Indians, Jami Ian MacCallister grew into a man more at ease in the wilderness than among men. But when the westward strike drove him across the Arkansas Territory into Texas, he finally found himself a home — in the middle of a bloody war. Texans like Jim Bowie and Sam Houston were waging a fierce struggle against Santa Ana’s Mexican army and Jami MacCallister made the perfect scout for the fledgling volunteer force. What lay ahead of them was a place called the Alamo, 13 days of blood, dust, and courage.

Craig Johnson's Walt Longmire mysteries are critically acclaimed. Longmire's third outing takes him from Wyoming to Philadelphia to investigate a brutal assault on his daughter, Cady. Walt believes her ex-boyfriend is behind the crime and searches him out. But when he turns up dead, Walt is back to square one.

A long way from Montana Territory, Falcon MacCallister is back east, visiting his family, with Buffalo Bill Cody by his side. When the government asks both men to take a break from being famous to get back to fighting, Falcon and Buffalo Bill head west - into a hornet's nest of trouble. A renegade Indian has followed his vision of bloodshed on a once peaceable territory. A land baron uses the slaughter as an excuse to clear out a valley. And the U.S. Army, trying to keep the peace, is backstabbed by a traitor.

Sometimes, it’s bad to be good. That’s what happens when Scratch Morton and Bo Creel are rewarded with a gold mine for saving a rich man’s bacon. The catch: This mine is a magnet for marauding Mexican banditos. Budding capitalists, Scratch and Bo fight back. That’s when they discover that the thieves aren’t who they thought they were, some really bad guys are on the way, and a beautiful woman might just be the most dangerous bandit of all — the kind that can steal your heart.

Macon Fallon had never needed more than a deck of cards, a fast horse, and a ready gun; he was counting on those things now as he led an unsuspecting group of settlers to an abandoned mining town. But while Fallon prepared to pass the ghost town off as a gold mine in the making, a funny thing happened: a real-life community started to take shape in the town he’d christened Red Horse. So when a band of vicious outlaws and a kid who fancied himself a gunslinger threatened to rip Red Horse apart, Fallon found himself caught in one predicament he’d never gambled on.

The first story in a fiery new series about the west's most dangerous boomtown, and the reformed outlaw who risks his life to keep it safe....In the dark shadow of the Prophecy Mountains lies the ramshackle town of Rattlesnake Wells, where dreamers come to make their fortunes, and desperados come to die. The streets of this little settlement are slick with mud and stained with blood, and it will fall to Bob Hatfield to sweep them clean. The town marshal, Hatfield, has a young man's face, but his eyes are those of a killer. He is a good man, but he has a secret that weighs on his soul.

On the rolling Missouri River, a riverboat of fur traders, a US senator, and Prussian royalty are all heading to the Yellowstone from St. Louis. Preacher's onboard because the nation's fate depends on the passengers landing safe and sound. But it won't be easy.

It's hard country, but the pioneers of Fury (Population 112) are banding together to make it a home. With barren lands, blinding dust storms, drought, hostile Indians and violent bands of cutthroat outlaws against them, death is never far away. It's enough to make Jason Fury, whose father the town was named after, ride out for San Francisco. But a fiery young redhead named Megan McDonald keeps him Arizona bound - and just in time.

Across the ranchlands and cities of his home state, Rory Yates's discipline and law-enforcement skills have carried him far: from local highway patrolman to the honorable rank of Texas Ranger. He arrives in his hometown to find a horrifying crime scene and a scathing accusation: he is named a suspect in the murder of his ex-wife, Anne, a devoted teacher whose only controversial act was ending her marriage to a Ranger. In search of the killer, Yates plunges into the inferno of the most twisted and violent minds he's ever encountered, vowing to never surrender.

Sheriff Walt Longmire is enjoying a celebratory beer after a weapons certification at the Wyoming Law Enforcement Academy when a younger sheriff confronts him with a photograph of 25 armed men standing in front of a Challenger steam locomotive. It takes him back to when, fresh from the battlefields of Vietnam, then-deputy Walt accompanied his mentor Lucian to the annual Wyoming Sheriff's Association junket held on the excursion train known as the Western Star, which ran the length of Wyoming from Cheyenne to Evanston and back.

Using an old cannon that once belonged to Napoleon's army, an outlaw gang has been bringing trains to a halt and then robbing them. Now Edward Sheffield - one of the owners of the railroad - wants to hire Conrad Morgan, known as The Loner, to wipe the gang off the map. The Loner isn't interested, especially when Sheffield's hot-blooded wife tries to seduce him into going after the gang's leader, Gideon Black - a renegade ex-colonel-turned-outlaw.

When Juan Cabrillo fails to capture the leader of Mexico’s most dangerous drug cartel and loses an Oregon crew member in the process, he’s determined to get revenge. Little does he know that the explosion he just narrowly escaped was merely the latest flash of violence from a machine of war that has existed for decades, dating from the bloodiest episode in Armenia’s history.

Sheriff Walt Longmire had already rounded up a sizable posse of devoted readers when the A&E television series Longmire sent the Wyoming lawman’s popularity skyrocketing. Now, in Any Other Name, Walt is sinking into high-plains winter discontent when his former boss, Lucian Conally, asks him to take on a mercy case in an adjacent county. Detective Gerald Holman is dead and Lucian wants to know what drove his old friend to take his own life.

With Apaches on the prod, ex-cavalry sergeant Sean Keegan, bounty hunter Jed Breen, and ex-Texas Ranger Matt McCulloch take shelter in a West Texas way station - along with a hot-as-a-pistol female bound for the gallows, a spiteful newspaper editor, and a coward with $50,000 who promises them five grand if they'll deliver his blood-soaked stash to his wife. Turns out, Indians might be the least of the problems for the trio, soon to be known as the Jackals. The loot's stolen property of the vengeful Hawkin gang, and these prairie rats are merciless, stone-cold killers.

When Matt and Sam are ambushed by a violent gang led by the scurrilous Zack Jardine, who has his own reasons for wanting the blood brothers dead, Matt is badly wounded. After leaving Matt in a Navajo village to get patched up, Sam rides off hot on the trail of the Jardine Gang. Sam finds the cutthroats selling guns to the Indians, a move that will likely explode into an all-out tribal war. Outnumbered and outgunned, the blood brothers aim to settle Zack Jardine's hash once and for all — with a little luck, a lot of bullets and the courage to shoot true.

Scratch Morton and Bo Creel, two aging cowpokes and friends for years, have seen their share of cattle drives, shootouts, and bust-ups. They do their best to stay on the right side of the law, and never go looking for trouble, but it seems to find them just the same. In Arizona Territory, they get stuck in the midst of a battle between competing stagecoach lines. Of course, a pretty woman who happens to own one of the lines has a lot to do with it, and things aren't quite what they seem.

In the town of Thirty-Four Corners, Colorado, Matt Jensen rides into a savage blood feud. Thirty years ago two friends came West and built a thriving cattle business. Now, their families have become kill-crazy enemies and the town is awash in a frenzy of killing. Add in hired gunmen on both sides of the fight, and two lovers crossing the dividing line, and the terror will never end. Eager to put as many miles between himself and Thirty Four Corners, Matt Jensen just can't bring himself to leave without trying to stop the bloodshed.