Western Thriller

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.

Here is a time when the old west became new - the 1930s-50s - as Louis L'Amour witnessed it first-hand in Southern California before and after World War II. Many people think the age of gunmen, scheming land barons, murderous bad guys, and the determined men who stood up against them, went out with the end of the Old West around the 1890s. But, in L’Amour’s own time in the New West, there were far more bad men toting guns and making grabs for far more wealth and valuable land than in the fabled days of the Old West.

Somewhere in his past, Smoke crossed paths with a lowlife who has now built a little kingdom as a frontier sheriff. For the corrupt lawman, holding Smoke's friend hostage is the perfect way to lure Smoke into a deathtrap. Now there's no choice for the mountain man. He knows how many guns are waiting up ahead. But he won't ever leave a brother behind. And this time, there won't be an enemy left standing — or a bullet left in Smoke's gun....

The Loner didn’t just bust out of jail, he busted out twice. The third time might be the charm — or a bullet in the belly. He didn’t want much — just the chance to drift out of Texas into New Mexico Territory. That’s when the Loner discovered there was a price on his head. A victim of mistaken identity, he broke out of Hell Gate Prison a few years back. Now, he’s behind bars again, until a sheriff’s love-struck daughter decides to come to his aid and a beautiful bounty hunter — who also has eyes for the Loner — joins in.

It's been six weeks since Jack McBride's life went to hell: The resolution of his first case as chief sparked a county-wide drug war, his brother Eddie rode into town with a pocket full of cocaine and trouble on his mind, his estranged wife returned from her one-year sabbatical determined to win him back, and Ellie Martin ended their brief affair.

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.

In the wake of Fourth of July fireworks in Montana's Madison Valley, Hyalite County sheriff Martha Ettinger and Deputy Sheriff Harold Little Feather investigate a horrific scene at the Palisades cliffs, where a herd of bison have fallen to their deaths. Victims of blind panic caused by the pyrotechnics, or a ritualistic hunting practice dating back thousands of years? The person who would know is beyond asking, an Indian man found dead among the bison, his leg pierced by an arrow.

FBI agent Tyler Reed trusts only facts and evidence, until the day a beautiful blonde delivers a life-saving warning...based on nothing more than a vision. Five years later, the mysterious Morgan Standish has used her talents to help Tyler and the FBI bring down countless criminals. Still, Tyler knows next to nothing about her. She contacts him by phone - and by some sort of psychic connection he's not prepared to admit exists - but has not shown herself once. Until now.

Malcolm Theodore Puddle is a 21-year shipping clerk - from way back East. What is he doing out here? The Mountain Man's former neighbor, Humbolt Puddle, has died and left his crumbling 600-acre ranch to his only living heir, just as a greedy and ruthless cattle baron is circling the Humbolt ranch like a ravenous vulture. Poor, unsuspecting Puddle is walking into a death trap. Smoke is the not the pitying kind. But any enemy of Smoke's neighbor is his enemy, too: kill-crazy hired gunmen are threatening the whole valley, and good men are dying....

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.

In a wicked conspiracy reaching across the Mexican border, Tularosa pits a jaded ex-cop against tight-lipped Army personnel, hired thugs, and smooth-talking outlaws. Forced into retirement by a crippling gunshot wound, Santa Fe policeman Kevin Kerney seeks solitude on a small New Mexico ranch far from the nearest neighbor. But when his godson disappears without a trace into the harsh, high-security desert of the White Sands Missile Range, Kerney emerges to search for the young soldier.

When he’s not risking life and limb on the back of a bronc, local rodeo star Ken Jensen runs a private investigation firm in his small Utah town. With the help of his friend and fellow investigator Dallas Welch, Ken has wrangled cattle thieves and dodged bullets. But none of that prepares him for his latest case. When a mysterious phone call from a frantic young man sends Ken and Dallas leaping into action, they find an injured rodeo performer named Herbie whose run of bad luck has turned sinister.

One of the bestselling novelists of the American West brings us a gripping tale of gold, greed, and vengeance.

They are just about as bad and evil as outlaw gangs come. But in the end, they finally go straight.

Ex-lawyer and herb-shop proprietor China Bayles is investigating the mystery of a retired Texas Ranger shot dead with his wife’s gun...while also trying to sort out some mysteries about her own relationship after she overhears a suspicious phone conversation.

Harland Bull Eaton has lost many things - his first wife, his beloved mother, those three women he proposed to.... Oh, and there was that time he almost lost the family dairy farm due to a scandal. He's losing faith in just about everything, especially love. But one night, his friends give him a dare. Just buy that gorgeous redhead a drink. The big-city bombshell he's set his eyes on swirls him into a tailspin that lands them in bed for a one night stand he's pretty sure he'll never forget. But this time he won't let his heart ride herd on his common sense.

They came from the sea: a former ship captain named Owen Bird who inherited a Texas ranch from his brother.... A former pirate named “Black Terrance” Malone, who has arrived in the once peaceful Rattlesnake Valley with a crew of sea dogs to do his dirty work. And dirty work it would be, as Black Terrance begins a campaign of thieving and threatening, even targeting Bird’s beautiful young niece. Into this storm rides the Loner — Conrad Morgan, son of the legendary gunfighter Frank Morgan.

With his rugged-cowboy good looks and the kind of smile that makes a lady's pulse race, Trey Calder could have his pick of women. But he's been holding out for someone special, and the minute he lays eyes on freelance photographer Sloan Davis, he knows he's found her. The attraction between the two is immediate and charged as heat lightning, even if they are as different as can be. But Trey's fierce passion may blind him to a terrible threat... Soon passion turns to suspicion.

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.

Sherlock Holmes-worshiping cowboys Big Red and Old Red Amlingmeyer have starred in five Holmes on the Range novels, rustling up award nominations and fans aplenty as they cracked mysteries using the methods of their English hero. How did these Old West drifters first discover Holmes, though? What were they doing before their novel adventures began? And how did their early, awkward stabs at "deducifying" turn out? These seven short stories provide the answers.