Forget Deadwood, Dodge, and Tombstone, the biggest, baddest boomtown of the 1880s was San Diego, California. The attraction wasn't gold or silver but cheap land, the promise of an oceanfront paradise where it never snows and rarely rains, and the too-good-to-be-true deals offered by local real estate merchants.In the wake of bona fide settlers came the hucksters, con artists, and snake oil vendorsaso many flimflam men (and women) that those duped called the town "Scam Diego." Abetting the crime and chaos was the nearby Mexican border, a convenient refuge for the rustlers, ex-Rebels, and banditos who floated back and forth across the unmarked frontier. Caught up in this perfect storm are two men: U.S. Marshal Cradoc Bradshaw andSan Diego Timesreporter Nicholas Pinder.Best friends growing up, Bradshaw and Pinder are now sworn enemiesaall because of a woman.Having once cooperated to catch bad guys, Bradshaw and Pinder now competeaPinder with his quill pen or Bradshaw with his sawed-off shotgun and Colt single action Army revolver.The competition heats up when someone starts killing the town's movers and shakers. As the bodies pile up, the question becomes which of the former friends willtrack downthe killerfirst?

In the middle of a harsh desert where water is the town's most valuable resource, an accused killer runs to escape the man who is trying to kill him. Troy Warfield is on the run. He is entering hostile New Mexico territory, where the heat sucks moisture from the earth and beats down the weak. Accused of killing a deputy U. S. Marshal, Warfield has been running for six hundred miles, evading the relentless pursuit of U. S. Marshal John Trent. Fulton, New Mexico, is the only source of water at the end of a desert. Anyone wanting to reach Mexico would need to ride through Fulton, a town that is run by Lem Bricker and his gang, who charge mightily for its water at two dollars a gallon. When Troy Warfield is waylaid on the way to Fulton, Marshal Trent gets there ahead of him and is captured by Bricker and his thugs. All they want from Trent is information: who he's pursuing, his description, and how much money he's carrying. Soon, it begins to look as if the outlaws will assist Marshal Trent to do whatever it takes to capture Warfield. There's just one little problem: Troy Warfield isn't carrying any money. Skyhorse Publishing is proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in fiction that takes place in the old West. Westerns books about outlaws, sheriffs, chiefs and warriors, cowboys and Indians are a genre in which we publish regularly. Our list includes international bestselling authors like Zane Gray and Louis L'Amour, and many more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

The Lonely Men

Tell Sackett had been lured into the Apache's mountain stronghold by the icy beauty of his brother's wife.  He didn't go alone.  John J. Battles, Spanish Murphy and the half-breed Tampico rode beside him.  Each was driven by his past to test his speed and cunning against an enemy who could smell a white man a mile away-and then shoot his eyes out at a dead gallop.  It was a contest few men could enter-and fewer still could hope to win.



The Sacketts

They are the unforgettable pioneer family created by master storyteller Louis L'Amour to bring to vivid life the spirit and adventure of the American frontier.  The Sacketts, men and women who challenged the untamed wilderness with their dreams and their courage.  From generation to generation they pushed ever westward with a restless, wandering urge, a kinship with the free, wild places and a fierce independence.

The Sacketts always stood tall and, true to their strong family pride, they would unite to take on any and all challenges, no matter how overwhelming the odds.  Each Sackett novel is a complete, exciting history adventure, and read a s a group, Louis L'Amour's The Sacketts form an epic story of the building of our mighty nation, a saga cherished by millions of readers around the world for more than a quarter century.

National Book Award Finalist--Fiction It is 1870 and Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd travels through northern Texas, giving live readings to paying audiences hungry for news of the world. An elderly widower who has lived through three wars and fought in two of them, the captain enjoys his rootless, solitary existence. In Wichita Falls, he is offered a $50 gold piece to deliver a young orphan to her relatives in San Antonio. Four years earlier, a band of Kiowa raiders killed Johanna's parents and sister; sparing the little girl, they raised her as one of their own. Recently rescued by the U.S. army, the ten-year-old has once again been torn away from the only home she knows. Their 400-mile journey south through unsettled territory and unforgiving terrain proves difficult and at times dangerous. Johanna has forgotten the English language, tries to escape at every opportunity, throws away her shoes, and refuses to act "civilized." Yet as the miles pass, the two lonely survivors tentatively begin to trust each other, forging a bond that marks the difference between life and death in this treacherous land. Arriving in San Antonio, the reunion is neither happy nor welcome. The captain must hand Johanna over to an aunt and uncle she does not remember--strangers who regard her as an unwanted burden. A respectable man, Captain Kidd is faced with a terrible choice: abandon the girl to her fate or become--in the eyes of the law--a kidnapper himself. Exquisitely rendered and morally complex, News of the World is a brilliant work of historical fiction that explores the boundaries of family, responsibility, honor, and trust.

He rode into our valley in the summer of 1889, a slim man, dressed in black. 'Call me Shane,' he said. He never told us more. There was a deadly calm in the valley that summer, a slow, climbing tension that seemed to focus on Shane. Seen through the eyes of a young boy, Bob Starrett, SHANE is the classic story of a lone stranger. At first sight, the boy realises there is something unusual about the approaching man, but as Bob gets to know Shane, he realises that there is an inner sadness in him. SHANE is the story of a gunfighter who tries to hang up his gun but is drawn to the side of the boy's family and other homesteaders in their struggle to keep from being forced off their land.

The Strong Shall Live
When they burned his home, he rebuilt it. When they shot at him, he shot back. But now the man they call Cavagan is in the worst bind of his life. With his hands tied and his body stiff from beatings, he has been left for dead at the bottom of a deep sand pit in the searing Santa Fe desert. Sixty miles from the nearest water. On foot, without a weapon, in one hundred and twenty degree heat. Only one thought drives him on: "I shall Live I shall live to see Sutton die."
Keep Travelin', Rider
After an absence of several years, Tack Gentry heads home to his Uncle John's G-Bar Ranch. But when he arrives, the entire town has changed. What's more, strangers have taken over the G-Bar. Strangers who claim that Tack's uncle died in a gunfight. But Tack knows better. He knows his uncle was a strict Quaker-a man who never even owned a gun. The new sheriff in town wants Tack to get out of town, pronto-but Gentry vows to stay put and fight for the land he believes is his.
Strawhouse Trail
On a seldom-used smugglers' trail between Mexico and Austin, a man lies dying. Texas Ranger Chick Bowdrie takes the stranger's body to Valverde, the nearest town. Upon arriving, a crowd gathers, watchful and silent as Bowdrie tells his story to the sheriff. In the crowd is the beautiful blonde Rose Murray, owner of the RM Ranch. Rose explains to Bowdrie that she has reason to believe the stranger was coming to see her in order to right a terrible wrong. Twenty years ago, the Chilton Gang robbed her family. Once Bowdrie discovers the identity of the dead man, he wonders if the surviving members of the Chilton Gang have returned to recover.

Since 1953, the Western Writers of America has celebrated the rich heritage of the American West through Spur awards and anthologies. With "Roundup ," edited by WWA Past-President Paul Andrew Hutton, the WWA again offers the very best of contemporary Western writing by the top hands in the field.
From Native Americans, famed frontiersmen, cowboys and outlaws, to contemporary tales of ranching, mining, and urban challenges, the WWA presents the full range of the American West as told in fiction and nonfiction short stories, poetry, and even a novella by television icon and WWA Wister prizewinner for Lifetime Achievement, Andrew Fenady.
Other Wister-award authors include such giants as Elmer Kelton, Robert M. Utley, Matthew Braun, and Richard Wheeler. They join Spur-award winners Johnny Boggs, John Nesbitt, Paul Hedren, Don Birchfield, Miles Swarthout, and Red Shuttleworth. These are not your Granddad's Western stories, but rather a fresh and enlightening look at the West and its people--past, present and future.

Before he brilliantly traversed the gritty landscapes of underworld Detroit and Miami, Elmore Leonard wrote breathtaking adventures set in America's nineteenth-century western frontier--elevating a popular genre with his now-trademark twisting plots, rich characterizations, and scalpel-sharp dialogue.

No author has ever written more evocatively of the dusty, gutsy heyday of the American West than Elmore Leonard. This complete collection of his thirty-one Western tales will thrill lovers of the genre, his die-hard fans, and everyone in between. From his very first story ever published--"The Trail of the Apache"--through five decades of classic Western tales, "The Complete Western Stories of Elmore Leonard" demonstrates the superb talent for language and gripping narrative that has made Leonard one of the most acclaimed and influential writers of our time.