Western Mystery

Smart and sassy bookkeeper China Bohannon is a modern 1890s career woman who'd rather sleuth than type. China is in charge of the Doyle & Howe Detective Agency office on the day a 14-year-old girl shows up seeking the detectives' help in a case of what she's calling murder.

The small town of Ballester owes its prosperity to the confluence of three big ranches - Snowshoe, Mexican Hat, and Rainbow. Its single lawman, Deputy Sheriff Percy Whittaker, known as Perc, didn't have to deal with much lawbreaking other than the occasional drunk on a Saturday night. Until a drifter named Sam Logan rode into town looking for work.

Sheriff Dan Rhodes knows it's going to be a bad day when Bert Ramsey arrives at the jail with a neatly wrapped arm and lays it on Dan's desk. He has another out in the truck, he tells the sheriff, and "a couple of legs, too, but they don't match up". Then Bert Ramsey is shot to death, and serious crime takes over. A tattoo on the body discloses that Ramsey was once a member of Los Muertos, a violent motorcycle gang from the city, and current members of the gang turn up in Blacklin County.

When cowboy artist Willie Russell is murdered on the Branding Iron Ranch, Sheriff Charles Matthews faces a mystery that seems built on the bones of the past. Willie Russell leaves behind sketches that illustrate a century-old legend of a brutal outlaw, a beautiful young woman, and the lost Santiago Crucifix, a three-foot-tall cross of solid gold. With only the sketches, the footprints of Johnny Brentwood, and very little else, Charles focuses on the eerie links between past and present events. Were Willie's sketches the story of the past, or a portent of the future?

This program features multicast narration. “I read everything Ivy Pochoda writes. Her capture of the complexities, diversities, and insanities of today’s life and culture is next to none. I loved Sing Her Down. The world will too.” —Michael Connelly, author of Desert Star No Country for...

Twister Malone and Chuckaluck Thompson are making their way through a West Texas canyon when they smell death. Finally, the two emerge onto the mesa, where they encounter the site of a massacre. A whole family of deer lies dead around a small pond, their skeletons bleached by the Texas sun. Someone has poisoned the water hole. Then a rider comes around the corner, rifle in hand, and gets the drop on Twister and Chuckaluck.

The hardworking single mother of young daughter, Joanna Brady still feels the acute pain of loneliness and loss, the hole that was left in her heart when her policeman husband was murdered. But Sheriff Brady is the law in Cochise County, and murder has shattered the small town's fragile peace. A local gun dealer has died violently, and his stock of high-powered weapons has been cleared out. When two more slayings follow soon after, suspicion falls upon rancher Alton Hosfield.

Deadfall tracks Charlie Yazzie, Thomas Begay, and Harley Ponyboy into unfamiliar territory. When a family member unexpectedly dies, a debilitating sense of loss overcomes our friends on the reservation. The ties that have bound them begin to unravel. What witch's evil is at work? Is the bond forever broken? Or is there a connection to the ancient past that might bring this malevolent aura to an end?

A modern-day Sioux warrior is "on the warpath," avenging five of his most famous ancestors by killing contemporary white leaders. When the Indian "Avenger" murders the Secretary of the Interior before thousands of onlookers at a Native American gathering on the Washington Mall, President Chamberlain decides to intervene. But, instead of relying on federal authorities, she turns to local D.C. detective Quinn Shannon, an over-the-hill cop with retirement on his mind.

The winter around Cheyenne Wyoming that year was devastating killing both people and livestock. John Henry Cole was three miles out of town on his small ranch waiting out the storm that was quickly killing his cattle and horses and starting to feel a little crazy himself. Everything he owned was dying before his eyes and there wasn't anything that he could do about it. His dreams of a settled life were as dead as everything else.

While investigating a clutch of brutal murders, Simms is dragged into a life-and-death struggle with a bunch of desperadoes, numerous Indians, a gunfighter, and a double-crossing US Marshal by the name of Dixon. This will not be the easiest time of his life, nor the most peaceful. By the end of it, a lot of people will end up dead. All Simms needs to do is make sure he isn't one of them.

A drifter wanders into the small town of Anson and finds himself in the middle of a feud with the neighboring town of Brandon. Who is this drifter and why is he here? Find out in the action-packed adventure 'This is My Town.

Sheriff Zeb Hanks has his hands full when sociopath Jimmie Joe Walker, recently released from an Arizona state prison, masterminds a devious plan to make himself filthy rich. His plan involves Ángel Gomez, a down-on-his-luck half Mescalero Apache/half Mexican. Ángel's alcoholism and far-fetched dreams make him an unwitting dupe in Jimmie Joe's plans, which end up endangering Ángel's own life, as well as the lives of those he loves.

When FBI agent Maria Belasco is mysteriously attacked, her soon-to-be ex-husband, Austin O'Brien, is instantly on the scene. Problem is, she can't remember what happened or the case she was working on. Or how, months before, tragedy had driven her and the reserved rancher irrevocably apart....Now Austin must pretend that nothing has changed between them to help Maria get her memory back and discover who wants her dead. But protecting her 24/7 is reigniting desires even more explosive than before. Austin will do whatever it takes to expose the enemy on their trail.

When a prostitute turns up murdered in Texas with all the hallmarks of Jack the Ripper, and Scotland Yard suspects Jack is an American on the run, Edwin Greaves, an English reporter, knows where he has to go to write the story of a lifetime. However, gruesome murder isn't all that he'll find in America. Frank Vito and his partner Ellie Stockwell are on the hunt for their elusive bounty Bloody Bob Anderson and come across the reporter on a stagecoach to Abilene. They learn all the gory details of the Ripper murders in London, and his suspicions that Jack the Ripper has struck again.

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....

Not all the folks who roamed the Old West were cowhands, rustlers, or cardsharps. And they certainly weren't all heroes. Give-a-Damn Jones, a free-spirited itinerant typographer, hates his nickname almost as much as the rumors spread about him. He's a kind soul who keeps finding himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. That's what happened in Box Elder, a small Montana town. Tensions are running high, and anything -or anyone - could be the fuse to ignite them.

Detective Jess Parker is furious when she's given babysitting duty for a farmer who witnessed a murder committed by the spoiled son of the city's most notorious crime family. Michael Weatherford is refusing to give up milking his cows and allow the department to hide him until he has testified against Antonio Carboni. No, the fool man prefers his cows, but Jess hates everything about farming! She grew up milking cows in the freezing cold, and missing out on everything her friends did because she had chores to do. She is not happy with the assignment.

John Henry Cole, working as a deputy US marshal out of Judge Isaac Parker's court in Fort Smith, Arkansas, was on assignment in the Indian Nations when he was shot and seriously injured. Now, 15 years later, employed as a deputy for Judge Roy Bean in Texas, Cole receives a personal summons from Judge Parker to appear in his court within 30 days. Cole isn't inclined to go, but he knows whatever's on Judge Parker's mind is serious and decides he has to go.

He was sure he could handle one petite PI with an attitude - but he'll need her help to solve the secret of his missing sister and outwit a ruthless killer. His family never fully recovered from the kidnapping of his siblings decades ago. Now Boone McGraw finally has a lead on his missing sister's location, but it means working with feisty private investigator C. J. Knight. Desperate to solve her partner's murder, C. J. doesn't believe her case could possibly be connected to the sexy horse breeder's investigation...until they find themselves running for their lives.