Fiction Literature Dramatized

The stench of death hangs over Happyville. When Flintlock rides into town, he sees windows caked in dust, food rotting on tables, and a forgotten corpse hanging at the gallows. The citizens of Happyville are dead in their beds, taken down by a deadly scourge, and Flintlock must stay put, or risk spreading the killer disease. His quarantine is broken by Cage Kingfisher, a mad clergyman who preaches the gospel of death.

The harsh, unforgiving frontier is no place for innocents. And when an old friend of the Preacher's asks him to guide a gaggle of wide-eyed Easterners through the Rockies, Preacher responds with a polite: "Hell no." But the pilgrims are pursued by a gang of outlaws...and then ambushed by angry Indians. With his friend caught up in the melee, Preacher has no choice but to try to rescue him...and anyone else who happens to be within reach.

There's a legend in this valley about a ghostly horseman that rides by night. There are many such legends and for schoolteacher Ichabod Crane the darkness of night holds a special fascination...and fear. For often there is truth in stories, especially ghost stories. And one fated night, Ichabod Crane will discover that the horseman of the legend is indeed... headless!

Ancient papyrus scrolls recovered among the charred ruins of the Library of Alexandria reveal astonishing texts that detail the wonders of Atlantis — knowledge that could shatter the blueprint of world energy. Archaeologist Annja Creed confronts shadow figures determined to preserve empires built on power, greed, and global manipulation, finding unlikely allies in a mysterious American with connections in high places, and a young linguistics prodigy with attitude.

The town of Bury took up a piece of Idaho Territory that was still raw, untamed frontier. It was no place for the cowardly or faint-hearted, but Smoke Jensen was neither. Nor were Stratton, Potter and Richards, the three bloodthirsty outlaws who came there to live. Or, if Smoke had his way...to die! It had been years since hired gunhands had murdered Smoke’s wife and son, but the pain was as fresh as yesterday. And so was Smoke’s need for revenge. He's come a long way to find the bandit trio responsible for his family's brutal massacre.

On the border between Mexico and Texas, Frank Morgan is caught between two warring ranchers, men who speak different languages but share the same stubborn courage - and are both being terrorized by a raider called the Black Scorpion. Texas Rangers are struggling to bring law and order to the chaos. But as the air is split by the sound of gunfire and men and women die, Morgan starts to see a different picture - and even comes face to face with the Black Scorpion himself. Suddenly, amidst deceptions, double-crosses and secret liaisons, the Last Gunfighter has become the next renegade.

Dante Valentine has been through Hell. Literally. Her body shattered and her mind not far behind, she's dumped back into her own world to survive - or not - as a pawn in one of Lucifer's endless games. Unfortunately, he's just messed with the wrong Necromance. And this time she's mad enough to do something about it. This time, the Devil will pay.

The Hunter from the Woods marks the much-anticipated return of Michael Gallatin, the lycanthropic hero of Robert McCammon's classic, The Wolf's Hour. These all-new, interlinked stories offer a full measure of McCammon's trademark narrative excitement, and comprise a fascinating composite portrait of a unique fictional creation. The volume opens with a pair of brief glimpses into Michael's early life in Russia and his initial recruitment into the British Secret Service. It ends with a haunting vision of the werewolf at twilight.

After the massacre of the entire G-Men franchise, the company sends their supes on a bacchanalia of a vacation at an island getaway, and the Boys keep an eye on the festivities and the guests, some of whom are worming their way to the highest levels of government. The Boys are then targeted, and one is ambushed. And we get a clearer picture of the backgrounds of Mother's Milk, Frenchie, and The Female.

Vance Brewster is a hardworking young cowboy. Stovepipe and Wilbur are two new ranch hands working at his side. And all three are caught up in a brewing, trigger-happy Montana range war between the Rafter M and Three Rivers. Then the fury suddenly explodes - in a hail of gunfire, the three men must show their hands: they're all hiding their true identities. With Vance falling in love with the daughter of the Three Rivers manager, and Stovepipe and Wilbur paid by a tycoon who needs the violence to stop, all three are in mortal danger.

In 1812, 12-year-old Art is a boy filled with wanderlust and raw courage. He runs away from home to begin a journey from Ohio westward. Along the way, he’ll run up against badlands and bad men. He’ll lose his freedom, gain his freedom, fight in the bloody Battle of New Orleans and learn the first rule of the frontier: do whatever it takes to survive. With ruthless enemies after him - both white men and Indians - Art will head for a place as brutal as it is beautiful - the wilderness of the Rocky Mountains.

"Killer from the Pecos": Texas Ranger Chick Bowdrie rides into the wild town of Almagre trailing a Pecos bank robber who has left two men dead. "Lit a Shuck for Texas": Johnny Buck is a young Texas cowboy working for the Bar W. In the process of roping an old stob-horned steer, Buck is thrown from his horse into a cleft where he encounters the mystery of a murdered man and a bag of ore that just might be gold. "Turkeyfeather Riders": Jim Sandifer had run Grey Bowen's ranch for years in his absence. When Bowen reappears with his newly betrothed, Rose Martin, and her grown son, Lee, Sandifer is glad to see his boss.

"The Strong Shall Live": When they burned his home, he rebuilt it. When they shot at him, he shot back. But now the man they call Cavagan is in the worst bind of his life. "Keep Travelin', Rider": After an absence of several years, Tack Gentry heads home to his Uncle John's G-Bar Ranch. But when he arrives, the entire town has changed. What's more, strangers have taken over the G-Bar. "Strawhouse Trail": On a seldom-used smugglers' trail between Mexico and Austin, a man lies dying. Texas Ranger Chick Bowdrie takes the stranger's body to Valverde, the nearest town.

World War III and its aftermath of all-consuming fire left civilization on the brink of extinction. But John Thomas Rourke, the ex-CIA Covert Operations Officer, weapons specialist, and survival expert — still lives, fighting the elements and the odds. And those odds have never been more heavily stacked against Rourke than when he finds his son mortally wounded and Natalia and all of his family kidnapped by a Russian foe, long thought dead.

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. Now in an eerie land of mysterious mists, haunting cypress trees, snakes, gators, and black-hearted, trigger-happy war hogs, Ritter is waiting for Flintlock with enough men and guns to kill him 10 times over.

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.

Joey Wells has a score to settle in Pueblo: Find Jacob Murdock and the band of vaqueros who attacked his wife and drown them in their own stinking blood. Smoke Jensen, the trigger-ready legend of the "High Lonesome," is more than willing to strap on a brace of 45's to help out Wells - especially if it involves nailing some dirty renegades to the wall. But things are tougher than Jensen imagined. Murdock and his men aren't just hiding out in Pueblo - they've taken it over.

Necromancer Eric Carter's problems keep getting bigger. Bad enough he's the unwilling husband to the patron saint of death, Santa Muerte, but now her ex, the Aztec King of the dead, Mictlantecuhtli, has come back - and it turns out that Carter and he are swapping places. As Mictlantecuhtli breaks loose of his prison of jade, Carter is slowly turning to stone. To make matters worse, both gods are trying to get Carter to assassinate the other. But only one of them can be telling him the truth and he can't trust either one. Carter's solution? Kill them both.

Looking for respite after a bitter struggle in Kentucky's Hazard ville, the wayfarers must make do with Arctic tundra and earthquakes. Trapped in the hostile landscape by a mattrans jump, Ryan and companions find the ultimate challenge to their will to survive. The odds dwindle when they become the new bounty in a struggle for dominance between a group of Neanderthals and descendants of a military garrison stranded generations ago.

Smoke Jensen is the most powerful man on the Sugarloaf frontier - and he's all that stands between a greedy group of Eastern slickers and their schemes for a criminal empire in the Rockies. When Smoke heads back to Boston with his wife, it gives his enemies the opening they'd been waiting for: to kill the mountain man and take over the West.