Western Crime Fiction

Big Max Higgins ran the outlaw town of Hell's Creek up in the north Montana Rockies...and he decided to include the nearby town of Barlow in his cutthroat operation. What he didn't know was that Smoke Jensen was there with his wife, visiting relatives. It didn't take Smoke long to rout out the lot of them with angry fists and blazing guns...but Smoke didn't count on Big Max doing something as daring, desperate, and stupid as kidnapping his wife - and demanding the town of Barlow itself as ransom.

Sheriff Martha Ettinger reunites with once-again lover and sometime private detective Sean Stranahan to investigate the death of a woman who was stranded in a spring snowstorm. When a fly wallet is found in a pannier on the saddle of the woman's horse, the leather engraved with the initials EH, Stranahan shows the wallet to Patrick Willoughby, the president of the Madison River Liars and Fly Tiers Club. Only a few days before, Willoughby was approached by a man selling fishing gear that had belonged to a famous outdoorsman and writer.

Once every year, Perley Gates and his brothers lead the Triple-G crew on its annual cattle drive. It's a treacherous journey along the Great Western Trail, with a herd of 2,000 cows on one side and many opportunities for trouble on the other. This year, trouble shows up in the form of a beautiful young woman, her little baby, and her bizarre traveling companion - a colorful old cuss who goes by the name of Possom Smith. They're heading to a settlement called Butcher Bottom, and risking their necks to get there. Perley offers to escort the trio to their destination.

Hopalong Cassidy, the iconic western cowboy hero conceived by Clarence Mulford, was immortalized in a highly popular film series starring William Boyd from 1935-1948. A tough-talking and violent character in print, Hopalong Cassidy was remade into a clean-cut screen hero who roamed the West with his sidekicks and fought villains who took advantage of the weak. Here Cassidy is drawn as Mulford originally conceived; rough-and-tumble, foul-mouthed, and thriving on brawls and gunplay.

When you look for the truth, there’s no telling what you’ll find… Brand Stafford has long felt he didn’t quite fit in with his siblings. Now he has the DNA evidence to prove his real father is the Staffords’ ranching rival, Holden McKenna. That secret does more than complicate his...

Married life for Tap and Pepper isn't turning out quite the way they planned. The ranch is gone and they've moved to Cheyenne where Tap finds himself a job as acting marshal in a town that has little regard for the law. And it's not a pretty sight!

There'd been several killings in Melville. Unusual killings, no witnesses, no clues, and no suspects. Sheriff Jim Bonner was having a time trying to narrow his search down. He had no idea where to look, or what he might be looking for. The murder was so gruesome, so unexpected, neither him nor his deputy, Smitty Younger, knew where to start looking. Whoever was doing this to his peaceful town was clever and covered his tracks. So Jim set about setting a trap for the villain.

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.

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

Buck Hawkins and Dobie Garrett are a pair of cowboys in the Texas Panhandle. They're unlikely outlaws - until their ranch is stolen and the two cowhands framed for rustling and horse theft by a crooked banker. Now with a price on their heads and hunted by the law, the two cowboys decide that if they have to ride the outlaw trail, they might as well be the best holdup artists in Texas. Problem is, they aren't all that good at the trade.

Ted Sweeney. Affable everyman in small-town Montana. Tailgate hung on with baling wire, owner of his own business. Ten minutes ago, his biggest worry had been how to pay for the engagement ring rattling around in his pocket. But that was before he came home to find a corpse tidily arranged in his favorite recliner, his "old pal of a piece of furniture". Is it a warning or a setup or what? Sweeney can't help but admire the efficiency of the work, the slice deep across the guy's throat. Somebody knew what they were doing.

Face-to-face with the woman who jilted him, Colin O'Brien tells himself he's over her. What the charming rancher doesn't know is that the man Melissa Roark Rancic married has forced her - and her infant daughter - to live a charade of love. And now, about to testify to his criminal deeds, she's shaken by rekindled feelings for Colin and scared that he'll discover her child is his. Though angry, Colin vows to protect Melissa from her vengeful ex while safeguarding his own heart. But once he steps up, he can't step away. No danger can keep Colin from the woman he never stopped loving....

This is a Western filled with bandits, stagecoach robbers, gunfighters, cattle towns, and Texas Rangers. What happens when a group of lawmen decide to turn the tables on an outlaw gang? Will their desperate gambit work, or will it backfire and send them all to Boot Hill?

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.

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.

This book is a work of fiction that tells the story of the first gold strike in the Montana Territory along Willow Creek in 1862. The gold camp grew to over 10,000 people, and Bannack became the first capitol of the Territory of Montana. My story tells about the lives of the four gold miners that made the strike, and it recounts the many hardships endured by the men and women living in a gold camp in the high mountains.

Nothing much happens in Peaceful Valley, Montana. And that's just how Sheriff Lucas Monk likes it. Aside from the occasional drunken brawl or minor disturbance out on the reservation, he hasn't had to resort to his fists or sidearm in years. That is, until mid-October, 1914, when the theft of a wooden cigar store Indian sets off a crime wave like nothing Lucas has ever seen. Teenager Charity Axthelm goes missing, Reba Purvis' housekeeper is poisoned with cyanide Reba is sure was meant for her, and Lucas' gut tells him that this is only the beginning.

Six months ago, Ellie was a newlywed, working the dry land in 1880s Texas. Then the desperados came. They raped her and killed her husband, leaving her for dead. But she hunted them down and, along the way, found an inner strength and relentless determination that no man can match. Ellie thought the killing was over, that she'd put her guns away for good to run a ranch that she'd inherited from a legendary Texas Ranger. She was wrong.

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.

While giving a lecture on Irish Mythology, Harvard professor, Dr. Rory Flaherty, meets Finn Issine. The meeting leaves him perplexed when Finn tears off a corner of the business card and hands it back to Rory saying the pieces will come back together in the future. The same week, he is contacted by Irish investigator Clarke who questions him on his relationship with Finn. This leads Rory on a journey through ancient history, hidden clues and a possible ancient alien connections.