Book picks similar to
Shadow of a Star by Elmer Kelton


western
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Ezekiel's Journey


Johnny Gunn - 2017
    A lesser man might just give it up; but Ezekiel Hawthorne isn’t a quitter. While thousands head to the California gold fields in wagons, Ezekiel loads his mule and embarks on an amazing venture across the continent alone, bound for the good soils and abundant waters of Oregon. Savages, tornadoes, and a lack of knowledge don’t slow the man down a bit. It’s a beautiful half-Shoshone woman who has the biggest impact on Ezekiel’s new life.

Big Country, Volume Three: Stories of Louis Lamour


Louis L'Amour - 2010
    It was a "big country needing big men and women to live in it." This volume presents five more of L'Amour's fine short stories about the West, restored according to how they first appeared in their initial publication in magazines. "Riding for the Brand" Jed Asbury was stripped naked by Indians and forced to run the gauntlet. He ran it better than they had expected and escaped with only a few minor wounds. Still on the dodge, Jed encounters a covered wagon in which the horses and humans have been killed, the wagon and its contents left to stand. He is able to outfit himself from clothes and guns he finds in the wagon, and in the process he learns what the intentions were of those who had driven the wagon--and the possible reason they were killed. Jed decides to push forward and accomplish precisely what they had intended to do. "Four Card Draw" Allen Ring drew four cards in a poker game with Ben Taylor, and he won a small ranch. The ranch cabin sits on a low ledge of grass backed up against a cliff of red rock, with a spring not more than fifty feet away. The ranch is all he had ever hoped to have. Only it isn't going to be that simple. Ross Bilton, the town marshal, shows up with two deputies and tells Allen that, whether he has a deed or not, no one is allowed to live on the ranch. A killing had taken place there years before and remains unsolved. But that's not enough to persuade Allen to leave. "His Brother's Debt" Rock Casady is considered a coward. When gunman Ben Kerr issued a challenge, Casady fled rather than stick around to fight. He rode on to new range and got himself a job. He did well at it, but everyone noticed that he avoided going to town, and he avoided people. That was before Sue Landon, niece of the ranch's owner, asked Rock to accompany her to town to make some necessary purchases. Though that might mean a confrontation with rustler and hardcase Pete Vorys, Rock agrees. However, minding his own business proves ineffective when Vorys decides that this stranger has to be cut down to size. "The Turkeyfeather Riders" Jim Sandifer swings down from his buckskin and stands for a long minute, staring across the saddle toward the dark bulk of Bearwallow Mountain. For three years he has been riding for the B Bar, and for two of those years he has been ranch foreman. Now he knows that what he is about to do will bring an end to that, an end to his life here, to his chance to win the girl he loves. He stopped a raid by some B Bar men on the Katrischen spread, and now he has to tell the B Bar's owner what he did--and suffer the consequences. "The Nester and the Paiute" The Paiute is the local bad man. But as bad as his rustling and killing has been, Sheriff Todd had never caught him with real evidence and so could only keep his eye on the Paiute, hope to catch him in the act. That was before the nester rode in, looking for the Paiute. Sheriff Todd is out of town, but that doesn't matter to the nester. He's been following the Paiute's tracks all the way here and now wants to know where he lives. That's easily told, but Sheriff Todd isn't going to like it if there's a shoot-out between the nester and the Paiute. What no one knows is that the sheriff has already run into the Paiute, and that the Paiute has finished him. For the Paiute, this has become the end game.

Blackjack Brannigan: The Montana Series


L.J. Martin - 2019
    Martin, brings you a classic western revenge quest!Jailed in one of the west’s worst prisons for another’s crime. Framed by a rich man and his whelp…who was your best friend and now your worst enemy.Learn to stay alive and how to survive…until it’s your time. It’s bust out a way they fear to follow and bring a buddy along. Then they shall reap what they sowed. Sometimes only gun smoke and blood in the sand will quench a thirst.

Ride With the Devil


Robert Vaughan - 2004
    Mason Hawke emerged from war a scarred man, a man unable to return to a life of power and privilege. His only way out is to start his life anew, concealing his past from those he encounters. But things don't always go according to plan, which Mason finds out when he stops in a town where he knows the local sheriff, a man who has the town under his thumb. All he wants to do is settle down and pretend the past never happened. But now Mason has to decide whether to live the easy life, forgetting his past, or to risk sacrificing himself, and help the town break free of the tyrannical lawman, at the risk of exposing something he'd wanted to keep buried.

Old Kyle's Boy


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

The Tall Men (The Classic Film Collection)


Will Henry - 1900
    Seeking riches, vengeance and violence, they struck out from Texas for the gold fields of Montana. And then they met Nathan Stark—a man just as bold, and even more cunning. Together, they set out to gain their fortune with an epic cattle drive through the heart of the Sioux Nation. It was a journey never before made by white men...a journey that might never be attempted again.

Ride the Man Down


Luke Short - 1942
    Phil Evarts is dead, and the Hatchet Range is up for grabs. That’s 70,000 acres of prime turf just waiting for the man rich enough to buy it . . . or the gunman crazy enough to kill for it. Every schemer in town has his eyes on Hatchet, and Bide Mariner leads the charge. An unscrupulous rancher who’ll stop at nothing for cash, Mariner has the money and the guns to take whatever he wants. Only Will Ballard stands in his way—and that means Ballard is marked for death.   The foreman at Hatchet Range, Ballard is an honest man who’ll do anything to keep the ranch from falling into Mariner’s hands. In a town so rotten with greed that even the sheriff is against him, Ballard must stand alone to save this little piece of the American West.   Voted one of the top twenty-five westerns of all time by the Western Writers of America and made into a 1952 Republic film starring Rod Cameron, Ride the Man Down showcases award-winning author Luke Short at the height of his writing powers.

No Man's Land (Jack Ballard Book 1)


Linell Jeppsen - 2018
    Sometimes he's able to stop it from hurting innocent people—and sometimes he causes it. It can’t be helped, though. He is a good man with a fast gun, and in West Texas in the late 1800’s, trouble lies around every bend. Only he and his filed-down .44-40 Colt can stop it.

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.

Blood Storm: A John Henry Cole Western


Bill Brooks - 2012
    Recent unexpected gunplay has whittled his detective agency down to a single operative: a man named John Henry Cole. Cole is the only man left when a new assignment comes in from a former lover of Kelly’s, a woman operating an escort service in the new mining camp of Deadwood in Dakota Territory. Three of the young women working for her have been murdered, and someone is trying to cover up their deaths.It’s a dangerous job, and Cole is advised that he must take every precaution—as if he needed such advice. The legendary Wild Bill Hickok was recently murdered at Deadwood, and Calamity Jane Canary and Doc Holliday are among Cole’s potential suspects. Add that to a corrupt constable and a bounty hunter who just happens to be an old enemy of Cole’s, and it’s clear there are many who will not welcome his arrival in Deadwood. Cole is a lonely man in a lonely profession, and finding a murderer in the wild mining camp could be less of a challenge than simply staying alive.Using real-life characters and settings from one of the most notorious times in the history of the Wild West, veteran author Bill Brooks spins another edge-of-your-seat thriller.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 Rattlesnake Season


Larry D. Sweazy - 2009
    SweazyA Josiah Wolfe, Texas Ranger NovelFrom the blood he spilled during the Civil War to his beloved wife, who died in childbirth, and his daughters, who were taken by the flu, ex-Texas Ranger Josiah Wolfe thought he had seen enough death for one lifetime. Now, with an infant son and a heart full of pain, he's rejoining the Rangers as part of the Frontier Battalion. But first, his captain needs him to escort Charlie Langdon to trial.Wolfe and Langdon had a long history together as both lawmen and soldiers—until Langdon's lust for blood and money made him an outlaw. Wolfe knows his old friend has to pay. But the ride to the hangman's noose isn't going to be easy. Langdon's friends aren't going to give him up without a fight. And Wolfe's killer instinct may be his only chance to see his son again...Praise for Larry D Sweazy"Combines the slam-bang action of a good Western with the sensitivity of style and depth of character that used to be the hallmark of literary fiction."—Loren D. Estleman, five-time Spur Award-winning author"Raw, wild, and all too human...a thundering testament to just how good the Western novel can be."—Johnny D. Boggs, Spur Award-winning author"A character-rich story about a Texas Ranger haunted by dark memories, on the hunt for a former comrade-in-arms turned killer."—Elmer Kelton, seven-time Spur Award-winning author"Ris[es] to the level of a classic."—Loren D. Estleman

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.

Seven Fingers a' Brazos


Eric H. Heisner - 2018
    When a wagon train of homesteaders is massacred by outlaws, a young male survivor is determined to rescue his stolen siblings. Dragged from his now peaceful existence, former military scout, Holton Lang invests himself in the search for the stolen captives as well as the difficult task of keeping the young man alive. As the search continues across three states, Holton meets old friends and finds new meaning in life as his job of survival embraces a newfound kinship.

Mariposa


R.O. Lane - 2019
    It's a tough assignment, and both men escape with their lives repeatedly. Along the way, the men find love and romance. It's a story of two men who grow to respect one another because they always do their duty as their consciences dictate. Another exciting novel from the pen of R. O. Lane

Double the Bounty


Robert J. Randisi - 2008
    Now Decker will make sure the innocent have nothing to fear… but the guilty won't stand a chance against the Bounty Hunter…According to numerous eyewitnesses, Brian Foxx held up a bank in Wyoming and one in Arizona -- on the exact same day at the exact same time. Decker has no idea how Foxx pulled it off, but he's got a legend of his own to maintain: he always gets his man. Robert J. Randisi delivers an action-packed depiction of the dangerous life of a bounty hunter in Double The Bounty.