"Brett Riley's COMANCHE is the best western-horror-thriller-ghost story-PI novel ever written."-Tod Goldberg, author of Gangsterland Like a cylinder in a six-shooter, what goes around, comes around. In 1887 near the tiny Texas town of Comanche, a posse finally ends the murderous career of The Piney Woods Kid in a hail of bullets. Still in the grip of blood-lust, the vigilantes hack the Kid's corpse to bits in the dead house behind the train depot. The people of Comanche rejoice. Justice has been done. A long bloody chapter in the town's history is over. The year is now 2016. Comanche police are stymied by a double murder at the train depot. Witnesses swear the killer was dressed like an old-time gunslinger. Rumors fly that it's the ghost of The Piney Woods Kid, back to wreak revenge on the descendants of the vigilantes who killed him. Help arrives in the form of a team of investigators from New Orleans. Shunned by the local community and haunted by their own pasts, they're nonetheless determined to unravel the mystery. They follow the evidence and soon find themselves in the crosshairs of the killer.

Following the War of Independence against the British Crown, a band of Tennessee settlers begins to carve out a new state in a young nation but face the opposition of the federal government and bloody resistance from the Chickamauga Indians. In this untamed land Owen Killefer, a slender lad barely in his teens, will face a trial by fire at the hands of white men and Indians alike -- and find within himself a stout spirit as strong as that of any frontiersman.

The third volume in The Tennessee Frontier Trilogy, The Canebrake Men is a saga of adventure set in the period from 1785 to 1800. In it Cameron Judd paints a portrait of the unforgettable men and women whose vision, passion, and pain gave rise to the new nation, such as:
-- Joshua Coulter, who had made a life amid the dangers of the rugged frontier and had been tamed by the Tennessee Wilderness, only to discover again a deep restlessness that stirred in his heart
-- Owen Killefer, who set out for the Chickamauga country as a boy to avenge a bloody crime
-- Emaline Killefer, who was torn from her family in a bloody raid by a British deserter and taken to live among the Chickamauga as his unwilling wife
-- John Sevier, the frontiersman who led raids against the Indians and was named governor of a would-be state the federal government never recognized
-- Andrew Jackson, a brash young lawyer with a fiery temper, who first met Joshua Colter as an opponent in a brawl but soon became a strong ally and loyal friend

A mysterious stranger, looking for a change in scenery, discovers a small Mormon community where a grown-up Fay Larkin has been taken against her will. Like its predecessor, The Rainbow Trail highlights the oppression of women within their religion. Following the events of Riders of the Purple Sage, polygamy has become a hidden practice among fundamentalist Mormons. Instead of living publicly, they've built an isolated village of sealed wives reserved for church elders. Fay Larkin, the adopted daughter of heroine Jane Withersteen, suddenly falls victim to the secret practice. This coincides with the arrival of John Shefford, a failed minister who's hot on the trail of Fay and her captors. The Rainbow Trail is a romance western driven by social commentary. It's a compelling story with a beautiful setting and engaging characters. Grey delivers a worthy follow-up to his most celebrated and culturally relevant work. With an eye-catching new cover, and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of The Rainbow Trail is both modern and readable.

The poignant odyssey of a tenacious young girl who braves the dangers of the Texas frontier to avenge her mother's death. Early one morning in the remote hill country of Texas, a panther savagely attacks a family of homesteaders, mauling a young girl named Samantha and killing her mother, whose final act is to save her daughter's life. Samantha and her half brother, Benjamin, survive, but she is left traumatized, her face horribly scarred. Narrated in Benjamin's beguilingly plainspoken voice, The Which Way Tree is the story of Samantha's unshakeable resolve to stalk and kill the infamous panther, rumored across the Rio Grande to be a demon, and avenge her mother's death. In their quest she and Benjamin, now orphaned, enlist a charismatic Tejano outlaw and a haunted, compassionate preacher with an aging but relentless tracking dog. As the members of this unlikely posse hunt the panther, they are in turn pursued by a hapless but sadistic Confederate soldier with troubled family ties to the preacher and a score to settle. In the tradition of the great pursuit narratives, The Which Way Tree is a breathtaking saga of one steadfast girl's revenge against an implacable and unknowable beast. Yet with the comedic undertones of Benjamin's storytelling, it is also a timeless tale full of warmth and humor, and a testament to the enduring love that carries a sister and brother through a perilous adventure with all the dimensions of a legend. A ripping adventure [with] a show-stopping finale.-Wall Street Journal The stuff of legends.-Attica Locke Powerful, sly, and often charming.-Daniel Woodrell

When Jack Kells kidnaps the beautiful Joan Randle, he takes her to an isolated canyon where his legion are plotting to acquire a gold fortune. The woman becomes an unexpected accomplice to an intricate robbery. Jack Kells is the cold-hearted leader of a group of mountain bandits. Despite his rough exterior, he develops a soft spot for their latest victim-Miss Joan Randle. She was captured by the men and taken to their hideout where she encounters one surprise after another. Joan spots her boyfriend, Jim Cleve, among the group but hides their intimate connection. While Kells plans a major gold heist, he is distracted by his complicated feelings. Zane Grey presents another compelling western drama with The Border Legion. This captivating story blurs the lines of good and bad, focusing on the nuance of each character. It is an intriguing narrative that delivers on all fronts. With an eye-catching new cover, and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of The Border Legion is both modern and readable.

Buck Duane is a famous gunfighter and outlaw, who's recruited by the Texas Rangers to help clean up a border town plagued by crime. It's a rare opportunity to do good in the eyes of the law and its people. The son of an outlaw, Buck Duane, unexpectedly follows in his father's footsteps when he kills a man in self-defense. Despite the context, he chooses to run from the authorities and goes into hiding. He encounters many dark and violent characters, but refuses to abandon his moral code. He only kills when necessary and never for sport. Buck is given a rare shot at redemption requiring him to rid a Texas town of murderers and thieves. The Lone Star Ranger is a transformative story about a tortured man's internal conflict. Buck Duane's mental and emotional struggle dictates every facet of his life. It's an insightful character study that tracks the evolution from outlaw to hero. With an eye-catching new cover, and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of The Lone Star Ranger is both modern and readable.

A stunning literary debut, Horseman, Pass By (1961) exhibits the "full-blooded Western genius" (Publishers Weekly) that would come to define McMurtry's incomparable sensibility. In the dusty north Texas town of Thalia, young Lonnie Bannon quietly endures the pangs of maturity as a persistent rivalry between his grandfather and step-uncle, Hud, festers, and a deadly disease spreads among their cattle like wildfire.

North Castle Books are designed to bring the global variety of knowledge to a broader audience. Primarily aimed at the general reader through bookstore distribution, North Castle Books makes available, in handsomely bound paper editions, titles of literary and cultural significance that our editors have found to be of lasting importance. Spanning the range of fields from Asian Studies to American Studies, from short stories to scholarly treatises, from myth to memoirs, from Economics to Government, from Russian Politics to Recent History, North Castle Books will occupy an important place on bookshelves. Each edition will be reasonably priced, affording students, scholars, and serious readers the means to expand their horizons and broaden their aesthetic understanding.

The story of the Cheyenne Indians in the 1870s, and their bitter struggle to flee from the Indian Territory in Oklahoma back to their home in Wyoming and Montana.

"Mr. Fast's novel will stand or fall upon its value as a dramatic, finely presented story. It is all of that: a model, which may easily become a classic example, of what to put in and what to leave out in the writing of a historical novel. ... I do not believe it is saying too much to suggest that in the person of Mr. Fast we may have the next really important American historical novelist". -- Joseph Henry Jackson, New York Herald Tribune Books

"Fast's writing, austerely polished and austerely poetic, is admirably suited to this epic tale of a desperate effort for dignified survival. ... Fast has gotten to the core of this incident and made it into a rich American novel". -- New York Times Book Review

"An amazing restoration and reconstruction. Thecharacters breathe, the landscape is solid ground and sky, and the story runs flexibly along the zigzag trail of a people driven by a deep instinct to their ancient home. I do not know any other episode in Western history that has been so truly and subtly perpetuated as this one. A great story lost has been found again, and as here told promises to live for generations". -- Carl Van Doren

The historic and mythic elements of the American Old West-covered wagon trains, herds of buffalo, teepee villages, Indigenous warriors on horseback, cowboys on open ranges, and white settlers "taming" a wilderness with their plows and log cabins-have exerted a global fascination for more than 200 years and became the foundation for fan communities who have endured for generations. This book examines some of those communities, particularly German fans inspired by the authors of Westerns such as Karl May, and American enthusiasts of Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House on the Prairie series. But the Old West (like all visions of the past) proved to be shifting cultural terrain. In both Germany and the U. S., Western narratives of white settlement were once seen as "apolitical" and were widely accepted by white people. But during the Nazi period in Germany and in East Germany after 1945, the American West was reevaluated and politically repurposed. Then, during the late twentieth century, understandings of the West changed in the U. S. as well, while the violence of white settler colonialism and the displacement of Indigenous peoples became a flashpoint in the culture wars between right and left. Reagin shows that the past that fans seek to recreate is shaped by the changing present, as each new generation adapts and relives their own West.

When sparks begin to fly, can a friendship cast in iron be shaped into something more? Mariah Stover is left for dead and with no memory when the Deadeye Gang robs the stagecoach she's riding in, killing both her father and brother. As she takes over her father's blacksmith shop and tries to move forward, she soon finds herself in jeopardy and wondering--does someone know she witnessed the robbery and is still alive? Handsome and polished Clint Roberts escaped to western Wyoming, leaving his painful memories behind. Hoping for a fresh start, he opens a diner where he creates fine dishes, but is met with harsh resistance from the townsfolk, who prefer to stick to their old ways. Clint and Mariah are drawn together by the trials they face in town, and Clint is determined to protect Mariah at all costs when danger descends upon her home. As threats pursue them from every side, will they survive to build a life forged in love?

"It's a great country, but never trust it, son. It's beautiful but it's treacherous." Adam Ross had seen the way his country could destroy a man. Growing up in the Australian outback in the first half of the twentieth century with no formal education, no parents and no one to love him, he learned to fend for himself. But when he forms an unlikely friendship with Jimmy, who works in the Opal mines, his luck begins to change. The land that stole Adam's father gives him an opportunity to start anew. Armed with determination and ambition, Adam treks west to carve himself an empire. However, success doesn't come easy and Adam, a man who spent much of his life devoid of love, soon finds himself caught between two women. Torn between his love for his cold-hearted wife and his mistress, Adam must make decisions about his future and the type of man he wants to be.

Kathryn Scanlan's Kick the Latch vividly captures the arc of one woman's life at the racetrack-the flat land and ramshackle backstretch; the bad feelings and friction; the winner's circle and the racetrack bar; the fancy suits and fancy boots; and the "particular language" of "grooms, jockeys, trainers, racing secretaries, stewards, pony people, hotwalkers, everybody"-with economy and integrity. Based on transcribed interviews with Sonia, a horse trainer, the novel investigates form and authenticity in a feat of synthesis reminiscent of Charles Reznikoff's Testimony. As Scanlan puts it, "I wanted to preserve-amplify, exaggerate-Sonia's idiosyncratic speech, her bluntness, her flair as a storyteller. I arrived at what you could call a composite portrait of a self." Whittled down with a fiercely singular artistry, Kick the Latch bangs out of the starting gate and carries the reader on a careening joyride around the inside track.

DEA Special Agent Garrett Kohl must rescue a CIA officer when she's kidnapped in Texas by a ruthless band of mercenaries in this pulse-pounding thriller for fans of C. J. Box. Special Agent Garrett Kohl has just taken down a dangerous and deadly cartel boss when he finds trouble brewing back on his family's homestead. A powerful energy consortium, Talon Corporation, has started an aggressive mining operation that threatens to destroy Garrett's land, his family's way of life, and everything they hold dear. To achieve its goals, Talon is flouting the law, bribing public officials, and meeting anyone who challenges it with physical violence. When the Kohls themselves are attacked by Talon guards, Garrett goes on the offensive, embarking on an investigation that he hopes will rid the Texas High Plains of the intruders once and for all. Garrett soon discovers that the company has origins in the dark hinterlands of countries across the globe. Using coercion and assassination levied by men from former Russian special operations forces, Talon is working on a highly secretive scheme to commandeer precious U.S. resources. The tit for tat exchange between Talon and the Kohls erupts into a full-scale war when Russian spy, Alexi Orlov, kidnaps Garrett's friend and ally, CIA operative Kim Manning. While Talon may be accustomed to getting its way in many places around the world, they have yet to encounter this rare breed of warrior down in Texas-a man who will fight to the death to protect those that he loves.

Introducing high-octane drama for fans of Lee Child, Jeffery Deaver and Vince Flynn: IT'S TIME TO DISCOVER A NEW HERO! Clyde Barr, the drifter with lethal skills, is alone again, wandering the highways of the American West in search of something to believe in. As summer turns to autumn, he heads for the mountains, planning to clear his head and regain his edge with some hunting. But when he runs across an elderly sick man-a Ute Indian from a nearby reservation-Clyde's dream of solitude is quickly dashed. On the reservation, Clyde finds the old man's daughter, Lawana, and grandson, Taylor, as well as a group of menacing bikers called Reapers running wild in the struggling, half-abandoned village. Gripped by the desire to do good in a hard world, Clyde offers to stay on Lawana's ranch to help out until her father is better. As tensions rise between the locals and the Reapers, Clyde's efforts to protect the reservation become a fight for his, Lawana's and Taylor's lives... A Promise to Kill is an edge-of-the-seat thriller, pushing its no-hold-barred hero to new levels of improvisation and bare-knuckled blunt force. Praise for Clyde Barr and Erik Storey: 'Clyde Barr - remember the name, because he could just become as famous as Lee Child's anti-hero Jack Reacher. Utterly compelling from the first page...for my money, it will become a worldwide sensation' DAILY MAIL 'Very, very good. Reacher is keeping an eye on this guy' LEE CHILD 'A singular new talent! Nothing short of brilliant. It grabs you from page one and simply doesn't let go. This man is a born storyteller!' JEFFERY DEAVER 'Erik Storey's writing is exceptional. This is a splendid debut, harsh and gripping throughout' THE TIMES '...the best debut thriller of the year - and don't be surprised if before long Erik Storey ranks among the giants of the genre' THE WASHINGTON TIMES

"River of Tears" enters the heart of the two women in the life of an impassioned man who took part in the massacre at Bute Inlet.

Midwife Mildred Harrington is riding back home one evening after checking on one of her pregnant neighbors when she stumbles upon an injured stranger. She soon realizes it's her old sweetheart, Pat, from country school-and he may not be telling the full truth about how he was injured. Set in rural Montana in 1925, Waltzing Montana follows Mildred as she grapples with feelings for Pat while also trying to overcome the horrific abuse she suffered as a young teenager. Ultimately Mildred must decide whether to continue her isolated life or accept the hand extended to her. Inspired by the life of midwife Edna McGuire (1885-1969), who operated a sheep ranch in central Montana, Blew has turned the classic Western on its head, focusing on rural women and the gender and diversity challenges they faced during the 1920s.

The Western, with its stoic cowboys and quickhanded gunslingers, is an instantly recognizable American genre that has achieved worldwide success. Cultures around the world have embraced but also adapted and critiqued the Western as part of their own national literatures, reinterpreting and expanding the genre in curious ways. Canadian Westerns are almost always in conversation with their American cousins, influenced by their tropes and traditions, responding to their politics, and repurposing their structures to create a national literary tradition. The American Western in Canadian Literature examines over a century of the development of the Canadian Western as it responds to the American Western, to evolving literary trends, and to regional, national, and international change. Beginning with Indigenous perspectives on the genre, it moves from early manifestations of the Western in Christian narratives of personal and national growth, and its controversial pulp-fictional popularity in the 1940s, to its postmodern and contemporary critiques, pushing the boundary of the Western to include Northerns, Northwesterns, and post-Westerns in literature, film, and wider cultural imagery. The American Western in Canadian Literature is more than a simple history. It uses genre theory to comment on historical perspectives on nation and region. It includes overviews of Indigenous and settler-colonial critiques of the Western, challenging persistent attitudes to Indigenous people and their traditional territories that are endemic to the genre. It illuminates the way that the Canadian Western enshrines, hagiographies, and ultimately desacralizes aspects of Canadian life, from car culture to extractive industries to assumptions about a Canadian moral high ground. This is a comprehensive, highly readable, and fascinating study of an underexamined genre.

Shortlisted for the Historical Writers' Association Gold Crown A gritty and lyrical American epic about a young woman who disguises herself as a boy and heads West. In the spring of 1885, seventeen-year-old Jessilyn Harney finds herself orphaned and alone on her family's homestead. Desperate to fend off starvation and predatory neighbours, she cuts her hair, binds her chest, saddles her beloved mare, and sets off across the mountains to find her gun-slinging fugitive brother Noah and bring him home. A talented sharpshooter herself, Jess's quest lands her in the employ of the territory's violent, capricious governor, whose militia is also hunting Noah - dead or alive. Wrestling with her brother's outlaw identity, and haunted by questions of her own, Jess must outmanoeuvre those who underestimate her, ultimately rising to become a hero in her own right. Told in Jess's wholly original and unforgettable voice, the story brims with page-turning Western action, but its approach is modern and nuanced, touching on powerful issues from gender and sexuality to family and identity. In the sweeping storytelling tradition of Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove and Charles Frazier's Cold Mountain, Whiskey When We're Dry transcends the straight-and-narrow Western to land among the classics.