Western Crime

Mob rule had taken over the border town of Whetstone, New Mexico. Black-hooded vigilantes were stringing up those they considered to be "undesirables" for even the pettiest of crimes. Someone somewhere had to bring peace back to the beleaguered town - but who in hell was it going to be?

New Mexico Territory, 1825: a volatile frontier where cultures collide. In Taos Valley, the brutal murder of a Mexican official and theft of the legendary Sangre de Cristo Cache—priceless Spanish gold and sacred religious artifacts—threaten to ignite open war. The cache, key to the new government's stability, becomes a magnet for deadly ambition. U.S. Territorial Marshal Sam Hartwell rides into this powder keg. The Hawken rifle used points to American mountain men, but Hartwell uncovers a deeper, more insidious conspiracy: the theft was an inside job, its secrets guarded by powerful figures.

On April 3, 1961, 38-year-old former vocalist Ella Mae Cooley was beaten to death in her home in Willow Springs, an unincorporated area located in Kern County, California. The cruelty of the crime was shocking to local residents in the normally idyllic community. A greater shock was that the murder was committed by the victim's 50-year-old husband, Donnell Clyde Cooley, a well-known big-band leader, musician, actor, host of a television variety show, and businessman. See how this tragic story of celebrity, suspicion, and homicidal rage unfolds in the historical crime of passion.

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.....

Cass Darringer returns from hunting to find his partner murdered, three innocent men hanged, his mustangs stolen, and himself the target of vigilantes. He's saved by Texas Rafferty and her uncle, but ends up in a fiery showdown with ruthless killers.

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.

The South Carolina backcountry is no place for a young girl to grow up in the 1760s, but 16 year-old Emily Stewart wouldn't have it any other way. She loves the settlement of 96 where her father Breck Stewart runs a tavern with his family, including Emily's embittered older brother, Donnan. But there's much to fear, too. Gangs of murderers, thieves, and robbers terrorize the country with impunity. Pleas to the government in Charlestown fall on deaf ears.

Heller is caught up in a dangerous crossfire as he cozies up to the local "coyote," a slimeball that takes desperate Mexicans across the river in the dead of night for a heavy fee and then sets them up to be robbed, beaten, and even raped by bandidos. The frightened prey are powerless, nobody cares, except Heller, and that ole mountain boy knows more than one way to skin a coyote.

Sheriff Sam Bridges has seen plenty of evil, but when a woman is found brutally mauled in Amity’s gold mine, Sam finds himself facing an enemy unlike any he’s ever known. Some say it’s a wolf. Others call it a demon. Sam isn’t sure what to believe—until the creature takes the one person he can’t bear to lose.

Former Posadas County Sheriff Bill Gastner, now a New Mexico Livestock Inspector, is enjoying a day on Herb Torrances. But Bill soon finds himself ferrying a broken cowpuncher in the back of his SUV, headed out to meet an ambulance.

When Tyler O'Brien finds a woman lying helpless after an ATV accident on his ranch, nothing adds up. Especially his real, sudden attraction to "Red". But aiding the amnesiac only compounds the rich Texas cowboy's doubts. How can he unlock the truth? Learning that Red is desperately searching for her twin sister who may have come to harm, Tyler - who doesn't "do feelings" - promises help and protection. Soon, he's also burning with desire. As the two race against time to find Red's sister, they're drawn deeper into a complicated mystery.

After being reformed for five years in the Wyoming pen, the celebrated criminal Mugs Birdsong decides to found a crime academy that will instruct lawmen on the ways of means of lawlessness. He sets up shop in an abandoned orphanage in Rock Springs, and soon is instructing classes in bank robbery, train robbery, and various other sterling occupations. He sells autographed wanted posters, and persuades a banker to let him stage a mock robbery at the bank, for the benefit of his students - and that's when the fun begins.

Tex Waco is a Texas oil billionaire who heads up the group of rich Texas vigilantes known as the Texas Twelve. Some drug dealing criminals, with connections that reach into the highest levels of government, make the fatal mistake of killing a friend of Tex Waco. Tex and his group of men waste no time in giving the criminals a lethal dose of 45-caliber Texas justice.

Tex Waco is the Texas oil billionaire that heads up a group of rich Texas vigilantes known as the Texas 12. A former business partner of Tex is kidnapped and held for ransom by a Mexican drug cartel in Oil Field, Texas. Tex; his two adopted sons, Kale and Ellis Baylock; and The General fly to Oil Field and begin to make their plans to bring the drug cartel to justice and take the cartel's money.

Provocations of the spirit world leave us no alternative but to welcome the modern Western prose of David Randall Shorey, and his story about the legendary anti-hero known as Mojave Miles. This tale tells us that the only war worth fighting is for the protection of wayward ladies and no-good horses! Never officially ordained as a vigilante, his vengeance on the Amargosa was accepted as having been handed down by sage angels.

Some treasures are better left buried. Jay Bohmer never turns down an adventure—especially not when it involves Clint, the childhood friend who once saved his life. So when Clint buys a mysterious artifact linked to the legendary Lost Dutchman’s Mine, Jay agrees to join him on a quest into Arizona’s Superstition Mountains, hoping for gold but ready for anything. But he’s not ready for murder. When Clint is found dead in a canyon—his death blamed on the spirits said to guard the treasure—Jay is left reeling. Locals whisper of curses. Shadows move where they shouldn’t.

Dalton Brisco rides into town and sees the sheriff of San Angelo, Texas, gunned down. After he kills the two men involved in killing the sheriff, Brisco finds himself in the unusual position of being a gunfighter wearing the sheriff’s tin star. Out-gunned and out-manned, Brisco has to devise a plan to keep the town from being taken over by a crew of gunmen, cattle rustlers, and horse thieves.

The once star profiler for the FBI, Doug ONeal, who has been able to capture the greatest of serial killers, rapists, and criminals, comes back to San Francisco to find the worst of them. Because of this killer's background, the FBI has never even known he existed. Doug has only suspected that he exists. The FBI puts together a task force with the San Francisco police, Anne Borges, and Jeff Shinn to hunt down this suspect to prevent more deaths. The police are always looking for the suspect, but are they looking in the right place?

Lonesome Jim Barkley had once been a town-taming law man. Now he was a man with a reward on his head, wanted for robbery and murder. The banker, Tade Wardow, knows this and thinks he can turn it to his advantage in a way that will also make Barkley money. Yet, for Barkley, there is another consideration, one more urgent than robbing Wardow's bank.

Earl Webb's telegram to General William Harding said it all: “Located John Fenner here using alias John Steen. Have hint he is planning Pensacola train robbery. Will try to pick him up before he leaves here. Please send requisition warrant at once.” That is, it said everything except the harrowing task of getting John Fenner back to Texas.