Western Indian Fiction

A Zuni Indian boy dies in a bizarre ritual slaying - and his best friend, a Navajo youth, is missing. Navajo police lieutenant Joe Leaphorn tracks the friend from Zuni village to Navajo hogan, from anthropological dig to hippie commune, across the desert of New Mexico and Arizona.

Award-winning author Craig Johnson's critically acclaimed debut Western mystery takes listeners to the breathtaking mountains of Wyoming for a tale of cold-blooded vengeance. Four high-school boys were given suspended sentences for raping a Cheyenne girl. Now, two of the boys have been killed, and only Sheriff Walt Longmire can keep the other two safe.

More than any other writer before or since, Louis L'Amour brought the American West to life. His action-packed stories deal with eternal themes: honor, deceit, passion, betrayal, loyalty, courage, love. His settings are historically accurate, his prose riveting, and his characters colorful: good guys, bad buys, toughs, roughs, sidekicks and saints.

He came west to the Rockies as a young runaway and grew into a legend among the already legendary frontier mountain men. They called him Preacher - a name that would become a monument to all who sought adventure in the savage wilderness of America's untamed west. The only man with the skills to lead a wagon train on the last leg of the rugged Oregon trail, Preacher knows they're headed into trouble. It's hard enough for a hundred greenhorns to survive the wilds of the northwest; being pursued by thieving renegade outlaws and Indians with a thirst for gold makes it damn near impossible.

He was etched by the desert’s howling winds, a big, broad-shouldered man who knew the ways of the Apache and the ways of staying alive. She was a woman alone raising a young son on a remote Arizona ranch. And between Hondo Lane and Angie Lowe was the warrior Vittoro, whose people were...

As the Revolutionary war draws to an end, the violence on the frontier only accelerates. The infamous Girty brothers incite Indians to a number to massacres, but when the Village of Peace, a Christian utopian settlement is destroyed, the settlers know they will have to hunt them down.

In 1885, while The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was becoming one of the best-selling American classics of modern times, Mark Twain began this sequel in which Huck Finn, Tom Sawyer, and Jim head west on the trail of two white girls kidnapped by Sioux warriors. Fifteen thousand words into the work, Twain stopped in the middle of a sentence, never to go back. The unfinished story sat on dusty shelves for more than a hundred years until author Lee Nelson decided to finish it.

Elmer Kelton is hailed as the greatest Western author of all time by the Western Writers of America and has earned six Spur Awards during his impressive career. In Badger Boy, Kelton effortlessly sweeps listeners back to the post-Civil War Texas frontier, where ranger Rusty Shannon hopes to settle down as a respectable farmer. But trouble brews when Rusty captures Badger Boy, a white child raised by the Comanches who murdered his parents.

The seventh novel in the acclaimed Sean Stranahan mystery series: Scarecrows are appearing in the cliffs above the Smith River in Montana, and state investigator Harold Little Feather is trying to discover the culprit leaving the hay figures in the cliffs, with signs painted that read "No Smith River Mine - Not on My Watch." The event is related to a copper mine project that threatens the river, but his investigation takes an ominous turn when a little girl claims that a scarecrow chased her in the night.

The earthy humor and the powerful emotional impact that set McMurtry's Terms of Endearment apart from other novels now rise to brilliant new heights with The Evening Star. McMurtry takes us deep into the heart of Texas, and deep into the heart of one of the most memorable characters of our time...

More than any writer before or since, Louis L'Amour brought the American West to life. His action-packed stories deal with eternal themes: honor, deceit, passion, betrayal, loyalty, courage, love. His settings are historically accurate, his prose riveting, and his characters colorful: good guys, bad guys, toughs, roughs, sidekicks, and saints.

By 1873, the great buffalo herds have been all but wiped out, and the hide hunters are looking for other work. So when Gage Jameson hears of one remaining herd, he sees a final opportunity to make a huge profit. But to find the buffalo, he will have to take his line of wagons deep into Comanche territory, where death lurks behind every rock.

When Jessie, a woman traveling west to an already established mission, finds a wounded Native American man, despite much opposition, decides to nurse him back to health because she knows it's what God wants. Despite hatred amongst some members of the train for the young man, she triumphs and is able to get him back on his feet, even though another attack almost kills him again.

Left destitute and alone with her mother after her father abandoned them, Erin Saddler is shocked when she learns her mother has arranged for her to be a mail order bride to a Mr. Rich McNettle. But they are out of money, and marriage is their last chance for a stable life. So Erin agrees to travel west to wed this man she's never met. But when a stagecoach accident and a brave man step in to her destiny, she begins to believe that God has other plans for her.

Life has never been simple for Jennifer McBee. As if being shy and hard of hearing wasn’t enough, now Jennifer is faced with the humiliation of her failed wedding. Desperate to escape, Jennifer decides to leave heartbreak behind her and travels west to be with her brother, the pastor of a small Nebraska town called Daisy Creek. While her brother has hopes for her making some new friendships with the townsfolk of Daisy Creek, Jennifer still feels removed from the community of this close-knit town.

Josephine Swift is a seamstress at a dress store in Chicago. After a harrowing incident at the store, she takes flight and makes a brave decision that will change her life forever. She begins writing to Anthony Douglas, a ranch owner in Oklahoma. It isn't long before she is on her way there to marry him. When she arrives in Oklahoma, events take an unexpected turn when she finds an abandoned Indian baby in the fields. Unable to leave the child to the elements and dangers of the wild, she takes him in.

One love-struck businessman; one compassionate Sioux maiden; one heart-wrenching decision. Is the power of love enough to save an entire tribe? Five years ago, when Edward James settled in Bear Creek to manage the mines, he saw a future of business and opportunity. He didn’t plan to fall in love. But since the moment he met Morning Sun, his world has been turned upside down. If only her family would accept him, he could be the devoted husband he longed to be, but how can he convince them that he’s worthy of Morning Sun’s love?

Lew's skill with firearms gets him a job as a hunter with a trader heading onto the prairies to barter with the Indians. There he meets young Chuck Morris, and together they take on a Cheyenne attack party. Finding shelter in a Sioux village, they absorb the native culture. Lew comes to know the great Sioux chieftains, becoming blood brothers with Sitting Wolf, while Chuck marries the beautiful maiden Zintcallasappa.

In The Big Fifty, another name for the famous Sharps rifle, reality of frontier life becomes brutally clear to 12-year-old Coady McIlvain. He falls in with a buffalo sharpshooter, and the two must survive the unforgiving terrain and hostile enemies.

At the end of the Civil War, a tremendous stream of soldiers and settlers began moving westward along the Bozeman Trail, cutting deep into sacred Sioux hunting grounds. For Red Cloud and his warriors, a bloody fight to retain their ancestral homeland proved inevitable. Brash Captain William J. Fetterman leads his troops into battle with the angry natives, while frightened white settlers anxiously await the outcome of the fight. The Fetterman Massacre of 1866 marked the tragic opening to one of the longest and most dramatic wars in history.