Ordell Robbie and Louis Gara hit it off in prison, where they were both doing time for grand theft auto. Now that they're out, they're joining forces for one big score. The plan is to kidnap the wife of a wealthy Detroit developer and hold her for ransom. Looks good until they learn the lowlife husband doesn't want his wife back. So it's time for Plan B and the opportunity to make a real killing--with the unlikely help of a beautiful, ticked-off housewife who's hungry for a large helping of sweet revenge.

Women Writing the West WILLA Award Finalist From "the reigning royalty of Minnesota murder mysteries" (The Rake) comes a striking new heroine: a young Irish immigrant caught up in a deadly plot in nineteenth-century Deadwood When I was fifteen and my brother Seamus sixteen, we attended our own wake. Our family was in mourning, forced to send us off to America. The year is 1880, and of all the places Brigid Reardon and her brother might have dreamed of when escaping Ireland's potato famine by moving to America, Deadwood, South Dakota, was not one of them. But Deadwood, in the grip of gold fever, is where Seamus lands and where Brigid joins him after eluding the unwanted attentions of the son of her rich employer in St. Paul-or so she hopes. But the morning after her arrival, a grisly tragedy occurs; Seamus, suspected of the crime, flees, and Brigid is left to clear his name and to manage his mining claim, which suddenly looks more valuable and complicated than he and his partners supposed. Mary Logue, author of the popular Claire Watkins mysteries, brings her signature brio and nerve to this story of a young Irish woman turned reluctant sleuth as she tries to make her way in a strange and often dangerous new world. From the famine-stricken city of Galway to the bustling New York harbor, to the mansions of Summit Avenue in St. Paul, and finally to the raucous hustle of boomtown Deadwood, Logue's new thriller conjures the romance and the perils, and the tricky everyday realities, of a young immigrant surviving by her wits and grace in nineteenth-century America.

Arizona Territory, 1871. Valeria Obregon and her ambitious husband, Raul, arrive in the raw frontier town of Tucson hoping to find prosperity. Changing Woman, an Apache spirit who represents the natural order of the world and its cycle of birth, death, and rebirth, welcomes Nest Feather, a twelve-year-old Apache girl, into womanhood in Aravaipa Canyon. Mexican and Anglo settlers have pushed the Apaches from their lands, and the Apaches carry out raids against them. In turn, the settlers, angered by the failure of the U.S. government and the military to protect them, respond with a murderous raid on an Apache encampment under the protection of the U.S. military at Camp Grant, kidnapping Nest Feather and other Apache children. In Tucson, while Valeria finds fulfillment in her work as a seamstress, Raul struggles to hide from her his role in the bloody attack, and Nest Feather, adopted by a Mexican couple there, tries to hold on to her Apache heritage in a culture that rejects her very being. Against the backdrop of the massacre trial, Valeria and Nest Feather's lives intersect in the church, as Valeria seeks spiritual guidance for the decision she must make and Nest Feather prepares for a Christian baptism.

For the life of me, I don't see how anybody in his right mind would want a berth on a busted down wreck like the Jessie Bill. But then there ain't many people on the Jessie Bill in their right minds [...]My name is Peter Paul Sherman and I'm mud clerk on the Jessie Bill. Flunky might be a better word for it. I'm 17 and if I can live through one more season on this leaky old tub, I'll put in for a job on some respectable boat... And so begins the wonderful adventures of Mr. Peter Paul Sherman. It's the kind of story that the incomparable Mr. Samuel Clemens would have recognized in a flash. Peter Sherman's lively and hilarious account of this travels up and down the mighty Mississippi will delight every family that appreciates the wonderful history and unique characters that make up our rich American heritage. Where else could you find battles with river pirates, riots caused by floating Shakespearean acting troupes, picnics that turn into brawls...and it's all true. More or less.

They raped and murdered his mother and sister. Then they viciously killed his father and seriously wounded his Uncle Milo. Finally, believing all to be dead, the killers burned down the cabin with the bodies inside, but...they had missed one.
Young Jonathan Doyle returning from a hunting trip with some Indian friends finds his home burned to the ground, the charred bodies of his family in the ashes. The heinous murders would have gone unsolved except for one thing: his Uncle Milo, though seriously wounded, had escaped the inferno and survived to tell the tale. Jonathan Doyle swears revenge, citing "an eye for an eye" as his ultimate goal.
Thus begins a trail of vengeance as a distraught young man begins the search that will last for years; destined be one of the most dangerous ever attempted in the bloody history of western lore: filled with danger and heartbreak for a nineteen year old boy intent on delivering his brand of "Ozark Mountain Justice" on the killers; A quest known simply as: the "Ozark Vengeance Trail."

Fifteen Montana cowboys and five hundred longhorns are embarking on a one of a kind Wild West adventure: a cattle drive across a thousand miles of Siberia. The clash of cultures between East and West, American six shooter and Russian saber, begins immediately when a band of Cossacks arrives to escort them to their destination. Cowboys and Cossacks must work together or they?ll never survive the journey, which includes a meeting with the warrior, Genghis Kharlagawl, and his army of bloodthirsty Tartars. The code of the cowboy and the credo of the Cossack offer different measures of manhood ? but honor and courage are the same in any language when a common enemy must be faced. Book Lust Rediscoveries is a series devoted to reprinting some of the best (and now out of print) novels originally published from 1960 to 2000. Each book is personally selected by NPR commentator and Book Lust author Nancy Pearl and includes an introduction by her, as well as discussion questions for book groups and a list of recommended further reading.

At the end of the War Between the States, great numbers of rootless, exhausted men and women set out to try and rebuild their lives in the unmapped, untamed freedom of the Great Plains. Noble McCurtain had been sickened by the slaughter of the war-he deserted, seeking a place where he could live in peace. Fleta Corey had waited years for her husband to return from the war, trying desperately to keep herself and her little boy alive. Noble chanced by their cabin just in time to save them from a murderous band of raiders, and they decided to join forces and head west... There, on the Santa Fe Trail, they would find not the peace they were seeking, but danger and death, and love and hope.

Larry McMurtry returns to the Old West in a fast-moving, comic tale about a woman determined to conquer anything that stands in the way of an ultimate confrontation with her wayward husband.

In his first historical novel in ten years, Larry McMurtry introduces Mary Margaret, a nineteenth-century version of the formidable, unforgettable Aurora Greenway of Terms of Endearment. Mary Margaret is married to Dickie, who hauls supplies to the forts along the Oregon Trail and, as Mary Margaret rightly suspects, enjoys the pleasures of other women across most of the frontier. Fed up and harboring a secret love of her own, she collects the kids; her brother-in-law, Seth; her sister, Rosie; and her cranky father and makes her way westward to settle things once and for all.

The story of their trek across the country is packed with the elements McMurtry fans love: encounters with historical figures such as Wild Bill Hickock and U.S. Army colonel Fetterman (whose incompetence resulted in one of the bloodiest massacres in the history of the American West), larger-than-life fictional characters who join the family on their journey, and confrontations with nature at its wildest. With characters based on actual traders of the Old Santa Fe Trail, Boone's Lick is vintage McMurtry.

Discover Thomas Savage's dark poetic tale of a small town in early 20th century American that inspired the award-winning Jane Campion film.

Phil and George are brothers and joint owners of the biggest ranch in their Montana valley.

Phil is the bright one, George the plodder. Phil is tall and angular; George is stocky and silent. Phil is a brilliant chess player, a voracious reader, an eloquent storyteller; George learns slowly, and devotes himself to the business. They sleep in the room they shared as boys, and so it has been for forty years.

When George unexpectedly marries a young widow and brings her to live at the ranch, Phil begins a relentless campaign to destroy his brother's new wife. But he reckons without an unlikely protector.

From its visceral first paragraph to its devastating twist of an ending, The Power of the Dog will hold you in its grip.

Set in the American Southwest in the 1870's, "Forty Dollars" is a western with an eclectic blend of many different characters consisting of southern expatriates, carpetbaggers turned ranchers, Mexican bandits, working cowboys, and a biblical quoting bounty hunter. The central figure is Jake Romero, a white man raised by Lipan Apaches and trained to be a scout with uncanny abilities, some of which are mystical or shamanistic in nature.

Jake is hired by a wealthy rancher to track for a vigilante group whose mission is to rid the territory of cattle rustlers and horse thieves. After an eventful three weeks in which he witnesses a lynching, is involved in a shootout with a nest of rustlers, and has a disastrous encounter with Mexican bandits and an expatriated Southern General, Jake returns to the ranch to collect his pay. The rancher refuses to pay him, so Jake steals the man's prize stallion, stating that the rancher will get the horse back when Jake gets his forty dollars.

This sets the stage for a confrontation between Jake and everyone that wants a piece of him, for one reason or another.

First you had movies like, Outlaw of Josey Whales, and Posse, and a book called Cole, now you have, A Family of Out Laws. This book is about a black western, in which the family refuses to let anyone take their land. It has a mixture of Western and Southern cowboys combine. From one crooked town's mayor after another, bounty hunters, and outlaws, the killing just continues to grow. Just remember, there were some black cowboys who didn't take any s**t. Their stories just weren't documented, until now. So saddle up and enjoy the book.

Peter D. Buckow hadn't had much luck in his short life. An abused and neglected child, he struggled hard to overcome the disadvantages of his upbringing. He worked hard as Henry Blough's ranch hand; he labored from sunup 'til sundown; he never shirked a task. But when Henry Blough tries to cheat the sixteen-year-old Buck of his pay, he decides to take his wages out in steers... Caught red handed by the deputy Sheriff, poor Peter Buckow is hanged with his own rope and left for dead. Except Buckow didn't die. He survived and was given an extraordinary chance at a second life. And now he had to choose between the easy path of violence and vengeance, or a life of honest hard work with no guarantee of success.

In 1870s Utah, a beautiful young rancher becomes the object of desire for a local polygamist eager to make her one of his many wives. She successfully rejects his advances with the support of two notorious outcasts. Jane Withersteen is a part of a strict Mormon community in Utah. Despite the conservative nature of her peers, she is an independent rancher who lives alone on her family's land. When she catches the eye of Elder Tull, a prominent church leader, he plans to make her his next wife. He twists the law and manipulates members of the community to isolate Jane, hoping to wear her down. But the cowboy Bern Venters and infamous gunslinger, Jim Lassiter help to stop Tull in his tracks. Riders of the Purple Sage is a classic western written in Grey's signature prose. Once described as "the most popular western novel of all time" the story has been adapted across multiple mediums, including five feature films. With an eye-catching new cover, and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Riders of the Purple Sage is both modern and readable.

Back in the winter of '77 I was deputying up in Two Scalp, Dakota Territory; waiting for my friend Clete Shannon-who was the Sheriff there at the time-to say the word for us to quit our jobs and head south...Being Clete's deputy give me mighty little to do but think things over, morning or night. Two Scalp's deader'n a sucker in a sandstorm. This lazy peace would not last. Willie Goodwin had seen a lot of life; he knew how the death wind could blow into a man's life on a clear sunny day without a sip of warning. He thought he knew how treacherous life could be...that's why he drank. When Nell Larson complained that someone was spooking her cattle late at night, neither Willie nor Clete recognized the danger....When Nell's cabin was burned and Nell murdered, and when Clete was shot by the same faceless enemy, Willie saddled his horse and went looking for justice and for the answer to the puzzle of why these horrible crimes were committed. Willie's manhunt would become an odyssey of death and vengeance. It would stretch over mountains, rivers and plains; it would take him through towns, ranches and farms. Along the way, Willie Goodwin would have to decide if friendship was stronger than honor or desire. Willie Goodwin was a simple man with some hard choices...

Falcon Hunt awakens without a past, or at least not one he can recall. He's got brothers he can't remember, and he's interested in the prettiest woman in the area, Cheyenne. Only trouble is, a few flashes of memory make Falcon wonder if he's already married. He can't imagine abandoning a wife. But his pa did just that--twice. When Falcon claims his inheritance in the West, Cheyenne is cut out of the ranch she was raised on, leaving her bitter and angry. And then Falcon kisses her, adding confusion and attraction to the mix. Soon it's clear someone is gunning for the Hunt brothers. When one of his brothers is shot, Falcon and Cheyenne set out to find who attacked him. They encounter rustled cattle, traitorous cowhands, a missing woman, and outlaws that take all their savvy to overcome. As love grows between these two independent people, Falcon must piece together his past if they're to have any chance at a future.

In Leaving Cheyenne (1963), which anticipates Lonesome Dove more than any other early novel, the stark realities of the American West play out in a mesmerizing love triangle. Stubborn rancher Gideon Fry, resilient Molly Taylor, and awkward ranch hand Johnny McCloud struggle with love and jealousy as the years pass.