Western Mystery

Smoke Jensen and his adopted son Matt are cooling their heels in Colorado when they are called to the Dakotas. Preacher, the legendary mountain man, is in the midst of a vicious struggle. Someone has kidnapped a proud Indian chief’s daughter and grandchild. When the kidnapping turns to murder, and Preacher vanishes after clashing with a ruthless Union colonel turned railroad king, Matt sets out to infiltrate the Colonel's gang of killers.

Imagine a place populated by criminals - people plucked from their lives, with their memories altered, who've been granted new identities and a second chance. Welcome to The Blinds, a dusty town in rural Texas populated by misfits who don't know if they've perpetrated a crime or just witnessed one. What's clear to them is that if they leave, they will end up dead. For eight years, Sheriff Calvin Cooper has kept an uneasy peace - but after a suicide and a murder in quick succession, the town's residents revolt.

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.

A quiet haunted man, Paul Cable walked away from a lost cause hoping to pick up where he left off. But things have changed in Arizona since he first rode out to go fight for the Confederacy. Two brothers - Union men - have claimed his spread and they're not about to give it back, leaving Cable and his family no place to settle in peace. It seems this war is not yet over for Paul Cable. But no one's going to take away his land and his future - not with their laws, their lies, or their guns.

In this first collection of short pieces, including two novella-length works, since his western anthology Tonto Woman, Leonard demonstrates the superb characterization, dead-on dialogue, vivid atmosphere, and driving plotting that have made him a household name.

Territorial marshals Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch figured things had finally settled down in Appaloosa when Boston Bill Black's murder charge was dropped. But all that changed when Augustus Noble Driggs was transferred to a stateside penitentiary just across the border from Mexico. Square-jawed, handsome, and built like a muscled thoroughbred stallion, Driggs manages to intimidate everyone inside the prison walls, including the upstart young warden.

In West Texas Kill, the harsh lands between the Pecos River and the Rio Grande are ruled by renegade Texas Ranger Captain Hector Savage. Into this realm rides Ranger Dave Chance with a prisoner - a big-talking murderer - shackled to his side. An honest ranger, Sergeant Chance determines to deliver the locals from Savage’s bloody reign. But to succeed against such long odds, Chance must do the unthinkable - unshackle and arm his prisoner.

Big secrets run deep. Former FBI agent Jack McBride took the job as chief of police for Stillwater, Texas, to start a new life with his teenage son, Ethan, away from the suspicions that surrounded his wife's disappearance a year earlier. With a low crime rate and a five-man police force, he expected it to be a nice, easy gig; hot checks, traffic violations, some drugs, occasional domestic disturbances, and petty theft. Instead, within a week he is investigating a staged murder-suicide.

After hunting down a rogue spy as part of an elite CIA counterespionage unit, Garrett Kohl returns home to Texas in hopes of settling down and carving out a normal life. While learning the ropes of fatherhood, falling deeper in love with his high school crush, and rebuilding his wildfire ravaged cattle ranch, he is approached in secret by an engineer working at a nearby nuclear weapons plant, who is in desperate need of his help.

This third volume of Louis L'Amour's collected stories is a thrilling tribute to the unique spirit of our frontier heritage and proves again the enduring popularity of America's favorite storyteller.

Blaze gets a call from ex-US Marshal Mitchell. He has seen two ghosts roaming the streets of San Francisco. The Cady brothers. Ruthless arms traffickers and killers Blaze and his Marshals’ team had taken out two years ago. One brother, Carson, died trying to escape. The other, Dexter, killed a Marshal and barely stayed alive, once Blaze was done with him. Dexter ended on death row, awaiting execution.

When Kevin Kerney, deputy chief of the New Mexico State Police, inherits an unexpected windfall of 6,400 acres of high-county land, the last thing he wants to think about is work. But while visiting his new property, he comes across an ailing stray dog that leads him to the butchered bones of a murder victim near the rugged mountain of Hermit's Peak.

Rancher Ty Farraday's hunt for stray cattle takes a turn for the worse when he discovers a shallow grave and the body of wealthy Alton Winstead, the owner of the Double-Cross Ranch. Ty's first frantic thoughts are of Winstead's widow, Sue-Ellen, who picked Alton over him. Unfortunately, she chose poorly. Alton masterminded a crime and left his helpers to swing for it. Hungry for revenge, the murderous headcases have overrun the Double-Cross and are holding Sue-Ellen prisoner.

In Montana's Gravelly Range, paw prints and a single whisker discovered at a scene of horrific violence suggest a woman has been attacked and carried away by a mountain lion. Sheriff Martha Ettinger employs her fiancé, sometimes-detective Sean Stranahan, to put a name to the gnawed bones comprising all that is left of the body. The woman's is the first of several deaths that Sean suspects are not as easily explained as they appear.

The last thing Ruby McGavin thought she would be doing after her husband, Cole, died was meeting his family. He had claimed his relatives were all dead, and she didn't know him long enough - they were only married one year - to think otherwise. But it turns out that members of Cole's family, from a small ranch town in California, are very much alive, and they show up on Ruby's doorstep with the news that she has inherited some land from her husband.

Robber baron Clifton Satterlee is in greedy pursuit of a coveted piece of land in the New Mexico Territory. He plans to wrest the timber-rich hills from the Tua Pueblo and then populate the town with his own subservient labor force. Many will suffer as his thirst for blood equals his lust for wealth and power. But Saterlee has overlooked one mighty obstacle - the iron justice and deadly aim of the legendary mountain man Smoke Jensen. In triumph blood will be spilled....

In 1885, President Grover Cleveland commissioned a special group of agents to investigate paranormal activities plaguing the nation. Unwilling to accept failure, he granted each the authority to operate outside the law. His directive was simple. No rules. No excuses. Just get it done. Remy Kincaid, the son of a pugilist and sharpshooter, is recruited with the promise of discovering those responsible for his father’s abduction. With the help of his cynical steed, Fable, he heads to the town of Wharton, Texas, to investigate the disappearance of several young children.

Western author J. A. Johnstone won a devoted following for authentic details, intriguing characters, and fast-paced action. In Rattlesnake Valley, a motley band of pirates descends on a valley town - and the local residents are wholly unprepared for the mayhem that follows. But one man, the son of legendary gunfighter Frank Morgan, refuses to sit idly by. And the sea dogs in question are soon going to wish they were back on the high seas.

Barnes, the supervisor of a Hot Shot wildfire suppression crew, is haunted by the season past, when many members of his dedicated, young team were killed in a Colorado forest fire that went all wrong, scorching the Hot Shots as they fled, some as they struggled into their fire shelters. He wakes each morning in the presence of their ghosts as they proceed across his bedroom or assemble at his kitchen table, their eyes asking questions that he cannot answer.

J. A. Johnstone - niece and former writing partner of the late Western legend William W. Johnstone - carries on her uncle’s legacy with this second book from her Loner series. After his wife is murdered, Conrad “Kid Morgan” Browning hunts down the men responsible - then visits his wife’s grave in New Mexico. There, he is shocked to discover his ex-fiancée waiting for him - along with armed backup.