Book picks similar to
Hanging Judge by Elmer Kelton


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The Cowboys


William Dale Jennings - 1971
    Will Anderson, a flinty old rancher, has a huge herd of cattle ripe for market when his regular hands, inflamed by gold fever, desert him. In desperation, he hires the only "men" available for the perilous 400 mile drive - a pack of scraggly schoolboys. Through skill and harsh discipline, Wil Anderson whips them from greenhorns into seasoned cowhands. But before the long drive is over, the boys discover that the price they must pay for manhood is a terrible one- murder and revenge! the stunning, heartbreaking climax of this extraordinary story will surprise you - and perhaps even sock you.

Bloody Season


Loren D. Estleman - 1987
    Corral is the ultimate Western adventure--and Estleman's novel is the definitive account* Estleman is the author of This Old Bill, Journey of the Dead, Billy Gashade, and City of Widows "High Drama... Estleman's account of events following the O.K. Corral gunfight is the best one I've ever read, by far."--Elmore Leonard

Old Kyle's Boy


Frank Roderus - 1981
    Another fine action adventure from Frank Roderus, America's western tale master. Don't miss this one!

Shadows of Nemesis


L.J. Martin - 2018
    He's on the hunt. When the task is done and blood soaks the Nemesis, NV desert, he receives a shock—his sister is still alive. Now, with posters on every trail in Idaho and Montana territories, and a killer’s price on his head, he’s on the prowl. What he finds is an equal shock, but not so much as to those who hunt him. When the hunter becomes the hunted, there’s pure hell to pay.

Blood Trail


John Legg - 2014
    Now, his hunt for his own brother becomes a quest…and the man who saved him shows him that a blood trail is the easiest to follow! And he must follow it to the end. His end, or his brother's.

Lawless Prairie


Charles G. West - 2009
    Caught up in a daring jailbreak, Connor is now on the run from both the law?and the lawless.

The Lawless West


Jon Tuska - 2007
    Now three of their best short novels are collected in a single volume. Zane Grey’s From Missouri has been restored from the author’s own manuscript and is appearing in paperback in its corrected form. Max Brand’s Over the Northern Border is a classic tale of stage coach robbery and relentless pursuit, also corrected and restored from the author’s original manuscript. Louis L’Amour’s Riders of the Dawn debuted in Giant Western magazine in 1951 and appears here in that original version, as L’Amour himself first intended it. Enjoy these three classic tales and experience the Western the way it was meant to be.

Showdown Trail


Louis L'Amour - 1948
    "The Trail to Peach Meadow Canyon" was originally published in a magazine, then substantially changed and expanded when it appeared as a full-length novel years later. "Showdown Trail" also appeared first in a magazine, but was reworked and expanded into the novel The Tall Stranger, which was the basis for the classic movie of the same title starring Joel McRea. This edition presents these brilliant novellas in their original magazine versions, as they were first written.

Trouble at the Redstone (Leisure Western)


John D. Nesbitt - 2008
    Will Dryden followed the trail of a missing man to the Redstone Ranch, where he will have to find the truth about three other murdered men.

Glory Dust


Robert Vaughan - 2015
    Now they're fighting for justice and revenge! They Came from one Missouri family, but Lance and Buck Chaney had been fighting on opposite sides of the war—until they were brought together ba a shipment of gold dust. Fighting for the Confederacy, Buck had been ordered to hijack the gold his brother's Union troops were bringing north to Jefferson City. By the time the skirmish was over the shipment of gold was missing. Now the former enemies have joined together again—to hunt down the man who had taken the gold from them both in an act of treachery and bloodshed.

The Stalking Moon


T.V. Olsen - 1965
    Original.

Riders of the Purple Sage


Zane Grey - 1912
    It is the story of Lassiter, a gunslinging avenger in black, who shows up in a remote Utah town just in time to save the young and beautiful rancher Jane Withersteen from having to marry a Mormon elder against her will. Lassiter is on his own quest, one that ends when he discovers a secret grave on Jane’s grounds. “[Zane Grey’s] popularity was neither accidental nor undeserved,” wrote Nye. “Few popular novelists have possessed such a grasp of what the public wanted and few have developed Grey’s skill at supplying it.”

Panhandle


Brett Cogburn - 2012
    The Texas Panhandle of the late 1880s is the last great open range of American legend. Into that wild unknown country ride two young cowboys. Nate Reynolds is the scion of a well-to-do family who lit out for the Panhandle in search of adventure--and gold. Billy Champion is a devil-may-care ne'er-do-well with a stubborn streak and an eye for the ladies. Together they aim to rid this violent territory full of rustlers, horse thieves, and the rest of the devils who slaughter innocents with no remorse. But when these friends fall for the same green-eyed beauty, their brotherhood will be put to the test. For in a land where your fortunes can change at the cock of a hammer, a man has to stay on his guard if he's going to protect what's rightly his--and live to enjoy it. . .In his gritty, pounding debut novel, Brett Cogburn, author of Rooster: The Life and Times of the Real Rooster Cogburn, The Man Who Inspired True Grit, proves he's equal to the task of writing the next great American western.Some folks are just born to tell tall tales. Brett Cogburn was reared in Texas and the mountains of Southeastern Oklahoma. He was fortunate enough for many years to make his living from the back of a horse, where on cold mornings cowboys still straddled frisky broncs and dragged calves to the branding fire on the end of a rope from their saddlehorns. Growing up around ranches, livestock auctions, and backwoods hunting camps filled Brett's head with stories, and he never forgot a one. In his own words: "My grandfather taught me to ride a bucking horse, my mother gave me a love of reading, and my father taught me how to hunt my own meat and shoot straight. Cowboys are just as wild as they ever were, and I've been damn lucky to have known more than a few." The West is still teaching him how to write. Brett Cogburn lives in Oklahoma with his family.

The O'Malleys of Texas


Dusty Richards - 2017
    . .As Civil War bloodies the nation's ground, Texas Rangers Harp and Long John O'Malley patrol a vast, unguarded range, picking off the brutal Comanche while protecting the families of soldiers off fighting at the front.Bullet by bullet the O'Malleys distinguish themselves as two of the bravest gunfighters to ever wear the Ranger's star. At war's end, the Rangers are disbanded, but Harp and Long John are not through fighting yet. They sign on with a cattle drive that will take them across the most treacherous and deadly stretch of the American frontier: the long trail from Texas to Sedalia. Beset by ruthless enemies inside and outside the camp, Harp and Long John aim dead straight for the future--where a great ranching fortune awaits back in a Texas they will change forever.

Hawk Eyes


David Althouse - 2016
    Chained to a tree, the man seems destined to hang for murder. In response to the boy's curiosity, Hawk Eyes shares his story of bad luck and misadventure. As if a master storyteller sitting comfortably by a campfire, Hawk Eyes relates near-death escapes, living with the Cherokee, gunfights, the death of friends and loved ones, and a quest for revenge. Ben can see vast landscapes painted from the words of the doomed man and feel the wild history of the West come alive. Will he have to watch Hawk Eyes die at the end of a rope?