Western Thriller

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...

It's summer in Galena, Nevada, and everyone is leaving town for good! After the harshest winter on record and the shutdown of the Shiloh Gold mine, Nathan and his friends watch as businesses board up and houses empty. Rumor has it that even their school may close. Who will be the next to move away?

Nick hadn't planned on being the prodigal son. But when his father dies and leaves half of Silver Buckle, the Noble family ranch, to Nick's former best friend, he must return home to face those he left behind - and to make sure that the Silver Buckle stays in the Noble family.

Ron and Jessica Stahl are a power couple from California, on a Christmas holiday in Colorado. When they stop for the afternoon in sleepy Lone Cone, they're charmed by the quaint tourist town. But the folksy hospitality will vanish as the sun drops behind the mountains. A winter storm is approaching, and the Stahls couldn’t have picked a worse night of the year to get snowed into this perfect little town with a dark, dark secret.

Clarence Mulford's classic Western introduces the legendary Hopalong Cassidy and other colorful cohorts from the Bar-20 ranch. While the Hopalong Cassidy of film and TV (portrayed by the silver-haired, avuncular William Boyd) was clean-cut and polished, Mulford's original Cassidy is rough-and-tumble and foul-mouthed, thriving on brawls and gun-fights. Bar-20 depicts Cassidy as he was originally conceived, fierce and free-wheeling, and matches the cowboy hero up against Slim Travennes.

Kate Fox has just defeated her ex-husband in the race for Grand County sheriff, but there’s no time for celebration. Instead, she’s called to the railroad tracks just outside of town. The train engineer is dead. His conductor is in shock. And Kate’s gut is telling her this is much more than just a horrific accident. The victim's widow is behaving oddly. The neighbor’s story doesn’t add up. The victim had recently made several enemies - and they all have motive for murder.

When Senator George Hearst taps Neville Stryker for another off-the-books job, it leads him straight to the gutted remains of the Mark Hopkins Mansion—once a crown jewel of Nob Hill, now a crime scene soaked in silence. The tenants, the Bosworth family, have vanished, their blood staining the marble, their bodies nowhere to be found. Locals whisper the place is cursed. Haunted. But Stryker knows better. Evil wears many masks, and not all of them are dead. Inside the mansion’s decaying splendor, strange things stir—phantoms of the past, secrets buried deep beneath velvet and stone.

The Missing is the story of Maggie Gilkeson, a young woman raising her two daughters in an isolated and lawless wilderness. When her oldest daughter is kidnapped by a psychopathic killer with mystical powers, Maggie is forced to re-unite with her long estranged father to rescue her.

Vera DeSoto runs a cafe in Marfa, Texas in 1968. The cowboys and truckers who come in fantasize and hope for a chance with her, but she enjoys her solitary life and isn’t ready to settle down with anyone.

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.

The Man Who Moiled for Gold draws its title from the Robert W. Service poem: "The Cremation of Sam McGee". The poem tells of suffering, loneliness, frustration, and ultimately death. Charley Martin experienced all of these emotions along with love and success while becoming the man who moiled for gold. Charley Martin, in 1912, is found mining the hard rock of Butte, Montana. Years of breathing the fine quartz dust in the pits have given Charley silicosis. Discovery of this incurable condition, by the mine super, brought an abrupt change to the 69-year old miner's life.

New recruit on the beat at Kings Cross in Sydney, Rhiannon McVee, is drawn to the missing–and is determined to find them. But she is the odd one, caught in a corrupt inner Sydney culture in the Detective’s unit. Then, Rhiannon must face her own tragedy, before she loses the love of her life.

Reeling from the news dropped on his desk days earlier, Sheriff Elven Hallie is left questioning everyone and everything in his life. But when a former deputy is burned to death, Elven must push aside the turmoil in his personal life to catch the killer. As if that wasn’t enough, new faces from the Starcher clan enter his county with vengeance in their eyes for Corbin’s death. Paranoid, angry, and directionless, Elven must lean on those closest to him to bring a ruthless murderer to justice. But that’s easier said than done when it’s those closest to him who he trusts the least.

Sgt. Bren Allred has seen all manner of criminality in beautiful Graham County, Arizona. He has managed to keep the worst of it from his wife, Monica, who is having a troubled pregnancy. But it will be difficult to keep the devils at bay as a new kind of trouble erupts across the region . When deputies Sanchez and Haley go undercover to investigate a rash of copper theft, they unwittingly stumble across a shadowy spy network. Meanwhile, Apache Police Sgt. Al Victor is confronted by a murder case involving a diplomat as he grapples with the ever-present problem of alcohol on the reservation.

Enterprising Boyd Archer decides to purchase and renovate the old ghost town of Galva, Wyoming, site of the once prosperous Galva Gold Mine. During the mine’s heyday, a strongbox filled with gold and jewelry was stolen in a stagecoach robbery by Max Rigby, the vicious Black Mountain Bandit. This treasure is rumored to be hidden somewhere on his rugged mountain property. As a promotional stunt, in the spirit of fun, Archer advertises a hunt for the missing strongbox. Archer doesn’t count on the ruffians who appear in serious quest.

Mai On is devastated when her landlord sells her building to a property developer and the bakery she’s worked so hard to build is threatened. The last thing she needs is an outsider tearing down everything that matters to her. She’s determined not to be swayed by the sexy, charming developer. After costing his company millions of dollars, Nicholas Shadbolt is desperate to prove himself. Taking on the re-development of a rundown building is just the stepping stone he needs towards redemption.

Nick Drake confronts a double-feature of murder and mysticism when Sheriff Pudge Warbler enlists him to catch a killer among the movie stars and film crew turning Harney County into a celluloid version of the Old West. At the same time, he runs afoul of a sinister gold mining company after finding an old prospector shot in the back.

Matt is in trouble again with the law, except this time, he is unable to weasel his way out. When Will hears of Matt’s latest arrest, it pushes their strained relationship to the limit. As Matt’s impulsive behavior leads to further trouble, dark secrets begin to unravel. The boys’ cousin, Lilianna Miller, raises questions about her true ethnicity, and discovers that she is a Native American, stolen as a newborn. Raised in a wealthy family, she is sheltered by her overprotective adoptive father. But when her parents are murdered by a gang, Lilianna is bloodthirsty for revenge.

Murder. Robbery. Kidnapping. Welcome to Napa Valley, California. To lawmen and bad men alike, the "Low Man" is a ghost story. The most feared bounty hunter to ever walk the territories. Whispered to be a Native American shapeshifter, a renegade Pinkerton detective, or the Bible-quoting son of a mad preacher. No one knows for sure. He’s a spectre outlaws scare each other with around campfires.

Lucas Brokaw is an incredibly wealthy man. But though he has amassed one of the greatest fortunes in the world, he is without an heir. Looking death in the face, he decides to leave his money to whoever can prove to be his reincarnated self. He has set up a foundation to oversee his assets until someone steps forward as the reincarnation of Lucas Brokaw - and can prove it. Hundreds of candidates emerge, each claiming to be the millionaire returned to collect his fortune. But all of them fail to provide significant knowledge of the life of Brokaw to back up their petition.