Mystery Western Historical Fiction

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.

On the trail to Hangtree, a gang of bandits give chase to a teenage gunslinger. Young Bill is bracing for the end when the crack of a Winchester scatters the bandits. Sam Heller, Hangtree lawman, has saved another life. And Bill will beg Heller to save one more.... Bill rode in from East Texas, where Cullen Baker, the original quick-draw artist, fights a life-and-death battle with a corrupt robber baron for control of the Torrent River. Bill came seeking help from Cullen’s old pal, Johnny Cross, who agrees to ride east to lend a bullet or two.

As both a prisoner and an undercover operative, US Marshal Hank Fallon has faced down some of the most vicious, terrifying, cold-blooded thieves and murderers in the West. Now, Hank is finally free, and he’s got no intention of setting foot inside a jail ever again. But the new federal prison being constructed in Leavenworth, Kansas, needs a warden, and Hank is the right man for the job. He’s got the scars to prove it - and to keep the peace. But keeping these lawless hornets in their nest is no easy feat.

After being run out of Arizona on a trumped-up murder charge, the Rio Kid spent three years in Mexico, learning how to shoot quicker than any man on the range. Now he's headed home to clear his name. But before he reaches Arizona, the Kid will have to pass through the deadliest border region in the West. Nestled snugly in a bend of the Rio Grande, Hell's Half Acre is a lawless outpost claimed by both Mexico and the United States, and belonging to neither. There, justice comes from the barrel of a six-gun, and the only sentence is death.

In 1848, Dooley Monahan, son of struggling Iowa pioneers, went off to pick up a new milk cow. Young Dooley never came home. Now, nearly three decades later, Dooley Monahan has become an accidental legend, managing to plant a bullet in the chest of a dangerous outlaw. All Dooley really wants is to claim his reward at a bank in Phoenix and make his way north to a gold strike he read about in a newspaper. But fate has other plans.

Twin brothers: one is troubled and the other is trouble. What sort of a twin leaves his brother, a troubled man, to deal with the impending arrival of his mail order bride? Reece threatens to pay for her return to Pennsylvania, but his father falls ill, and he needs to hire her as his father’s companion. Reece’s past haunts him and he vows to stay clear of Maggie. Will he succeed?

Smoke Jensen has come to Corpus Christi, Texas, to take delivery of 500 horses he purchased from and old friend. That's when a Mexican revolutionary, Colonel Butamante Keno, brazenly crashes the border, slaughters 22 innocent US citizens in cold blood, and steals a thousand head of cattle - along with 200 of Smoke's horses.

When a lovely lady steps off a dusty stagecoach in Hangtree, the hardest heart skips a beat - and Sam Heller falls hard for her. What Hangtree doesn't know, however, is that Julia Pepperday isn't who she pretends to be. She is the daughter of the late Black Ear Skinner, a notorious outlaw who wanted his only child to have all the advantages in life and sent her back east. Black Ear Skinner's apple hasn't fallen far from the tree though. Julia has turned her back on the fancy boarding school and set her sights on Hangtree, because that's where Sam Heller has built a hard-earned fortune.

1942 - Granbury, Texas. A 95-year-old man walks into a recruiting office with the crazy idea to enlist - and an even crazier story. He claims to be the one and only Jesse James, the infamous bank robber allegedly shot by Robert Ford 60 years earlier. Using another man’s corpse to collect the reward, Ford allowed James to slip away and start a new life. Changing his name to Dalton, Jesse worked as a cattle broker in Fort Worth and fathered a pair of twins named Bill and Frank.

From the moment they left their homestead unguarded on that scorching Texas day, Martin Pauley and Amos Edwards became searchers. First they had to return to the decimated ranch, bury the bodies of their family, and confront the evil cunning of the Comanche who had slaughtered them. Then they set out in pursuit of missing Debbie Edwards. In the years that follow, Amos and Martin survive storms of nature and of men, seeking more than a missing girl, and more than revenge. Both are driven by secrets, guilt, love, and rage.

Western Missouri. Former army scout Jack Gregory returns from battle to a homestead in ruins. A wanted man with no place to go, he chooses an even deadlier career - as a scout for General George Armstrong Custer. Under a new name, Jack serves bravely in the Seventh Cavalry. But when Custer’s disastrous leadership ends in devastating slaughter, Jack sets off to forge his own destiny. Winning a small ranch in a card game, he hopes to settle down and live a peaceful life.

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 is a predator lying in wait. He's undercover as an outlaw to infiltrate a pair of vicious border gangs and bring them down. This mission has already had its share of casualties, and if Burrack has his say, there will be more. A cloud of dust rises as four men ride toward the Twisted Hills. The only thing between them and certain death at the hands of the Apaches is Sam, who also wants those men dead.

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.

After an attempted horse theft goes tragically wrong, 16-year-old Caleb Bentley is on the run with his mean-spirited older brother across the American Southwest at the turn of the 20th century. Caleb’s moral compass and inner courage will be tested as they travel the harsh terrain and encounter those who have carved out a life there, for good or ill.

Businessman Conrad Browning is desperate enough to hire his estranged father, quick-draw Frank Morgan, to neutralize the trouble plaguing his New Mexico railroad line. As the unlikely pair rides to the remote railroad site, they outshoot vengeful bushwhackers and hostile Apaches. But just as Frank and his son begin to bond, a criminal mastermind designs an evil plan to kill them both. And when a gorgeous young lady stumbles into their camp one night, they soon find themselves under her disarming spell.

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.

The great-grandson of iconic Old West hero Rooster Cogburn, acclaimed author Brett Cogburn delivers Panhandle, a novel of the Texas frontier. Cowboys Nate Reynolds and Billy Champion, one a well-to-do young man and the other a stubborn troublemaker, couldn’t be more different -- yet that doesn’t stop them from becoming friends. Determined to rid the frontier of the violent men who kill innocents without hesitation, they soon learn that playing hero can be deadly business.