The Quick and the Dead


Louis L'Amour - 1973
    He knew about the exhausting terrain, and he was expecting the punishing elements. What he worried about was having to use violence against other men—men who would follow him and try to steal the riches that he didn’t even possess.Yet bandits were only part of McKaskel’s worries. For a mysterious stranger, Con Vallian, had appeared one night and saved his life. But was Vallian’s true interest Duncan’s wife, Susanna? And, more important, how did she feel about him?As they push on into the wilderness, Duncan must discover who is the greater threat—the thieves outside his camp or the enigmatic stranger within.…

Valdez Is Coming


Elmore Leonard - 1970
    But when a dark-skinned man was holed up in a shack with a gun, they sent the part-time town constable to deal with the problem -- and made sure he had no choice but to gun the fugitive down. Trouble was, Valdez killed an innocent man. And when he asked for justice -- and some money for the dead man's woman -- they beat Valdez and tied him to a cross. They were still laughing when Valdez came back. And then they began to die...

Anything for Billy


Larry McMurtry - 1988
    Larry McMurtry takes us on a hell-for-leather journey with Billy and his friends as they ride, drink, love, fight, shoot, and escape their way into the shining memories of Western myth. Surrounded by a splendid cast of characters that only Larry McMurtry could create, Billy charges headlong toward his fate, to become in death the unforgettable desperado he aspires to be in life. Not since Lonesome Dove has there been such a rich, exciting novel about the cowboys, Indians, and gunmen who live at the blazing heart of the American dream.

Sidewinders


William W. Johnstone - 2008
    Now, the bestselling authors kick off a rollicking, dramatic new series--with the first novel about a pair of not-quite-over-the-hill drifters winding their way across the American west--mostly on the right side of the law. . .but sometimes, if the situation calls for it, on the wrong side. . . Meet Scratch Morton and Bo Creel, two amiable drifters and old pals. Veterans of cowboying, cattle drives, drunken brawls, and a couple of shoot-outs, Scratch and Bo are mostly honest and don't go looking for trouble--it's usually there when they wake up in the morning. Now, in remote Arizona Territory, they're caught up in a battle between two stagecoach lines. The owner of one, a beautiful widow, has gotten both Scratch and Bo hot and bothered--each trying to impress her as they fend off the opposing stage line trying to destroy her. But nothing is what it seems in this fight, and two tough sidewinders are riding straight into a trap.

Breakheart Pass


Alistair MacLean - 1974
    Travelling along it is a crowded troop train, bound for the cholera-stricken garrison at Fort Humboldt. On board are the Governor of Nevada, the daughter of the fort’s commander and a US marshal escorting a notorious outlaw. Between them and safety are the hostile Paiute Indians – and a man who will stop at nothing, not even murder…

Death Rides a Chestnut Mare


Ralph Compton - 1999
    Riding to Texas to buy some cattle, the best gunsmith in St. Joseph, Missouri, gets waylaid by a pack of murdering outlaws. His lifeless body is left dangling at the end of a rope, robbing his family of a loving husband and father.Now a mysterious gunslinger is on the vengeance trail, packing Daniel Strange's Colt and answering to the same name. With fiery green eyes and a temper to match, the vigilante won't stop until every last man who killed Daniel Strange shares the same fate. And as each bullet finds its mark, the avenger's victims die never knowing the truth: Daniel Strange may be dead and buried, but his daughter is alive -- and killing.

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.”

The Columbus Affair


Steve Berry - 2012
    But when one of his stories from the Middle East is exposed as a fraud, his professional reputation crashes and burns. Now he lives in virtual exile—haunted by bad decisions and a shocking truth he can never prove:  that his downfall was a deliberate act of sabotage by an unknown enemy. But before Sagan can end his torment with the squeeze of a trigger, fate intervenes in the form of an enigmatic stranger.  This stranger forces Sagan to act—and his actions attract the attention of the Magellan Billet, a top-secret corps of the United States Justice Department that deals with America’s most sensitive investigations. Sagan suddenly finds himself caught in an international incident, the repercussions of which will shudder not only Washington, D.C., but also Jerusalem. Coaxed into a deadly cat-and-mouse game, unsure who’s friend and who’s foe, Sagan is forced to Vienna, Prague, then finally into the Blue Mountains of Jamaica—where his survival hinges on his rewriting everything we know about Christopher Columbus.

A Matter of Honor


Jeffrey Archer - 1986
    A disgraced British colonel bequeaths a mysterious letter to his only son. But the moment Adam Scott opens the yellowing envelope, he sets into motion a deadly chain of events that threatens to shake the very foundations of the free world.Within days, Adam's lover is brutally murdered and he's running for his life through the great cities of Europe, pursued not only by the KGB, but by the CIA and his own countrymen as well. Their common intent is to kill him before the truth comes out. While powerful men in smoke-filled rooms plot ever more ingenious means of destroying him, Adam finds himself betrayed and abandoned even by those he holds most dear.When at last he comes to understand what he is in possession of, he's even more determined to protect it, for it's more than a matter of life and death-it's a matter of honor.

Atlantis


David Gibbins - 2004
    The hunt is on for...ATLANTISMarine archaeologist Jack Howard has stumbled upon the keys to an ancient puzzle. With a crack team of scientific experts and ex–Special Forces commandos, he is heading for what he believes could be the greatest archaeological find of all time——the site of fabled Atlantis——while a ruthless adversary watches his every move and prepares to strike.But neither of them could have imagined what awaits them in the murky depths. Not only a shocking truth about a lost world, but an explosive secret that could have devastating consequences today. Jack is determined to stop the legacy of Atlantis from falling into the wrong hands, whatever the cost. But first he must do battle to prevent a global catastrophe.

The Thicket


Joe R. Lansdale - 2013
    Jack Parker thought he'd already seen his fair share of tragedy. His grandmother was killed in a farm accident when he was barely five years old. His parents have just succumbed to the smallpox epidemic sweeping turn-of-the-century East Texas -- orphaning him and his younger sister, Lula. Then catastrophe strikes on the way to their uncle's farm, when a traveling group of bank-robbing bandits murder Jack's grandfather and kidnap his sister. With no elders left for miles, Jack must grow up fast and enlist a band of heroes the likes of which has never been seen if his sister stands any chance at survival. But the best he can come up with is a charismatic, bounty-hunting dwarf named Shorty, a grave-digging son of an ex-slave named Eustace, and a street-smart woman-for-hire named Jimmie Sue who's come into some very intimate knowledge about the bandits (and a few members of Jack's extended family to boot). In the throes of being civilized, East Texas is still a wild, feral place. Oil wells spurt liquid money from the ground. But as Jack's about to find out, blood and redemption rule supreme. In The Thicket, award-winning novelist Joe R. Lansdale lets loose like never before, in a rip-roaring adventure equal parts True Grit and Stand by Me - - the perfect introduction to an acclaimed writer whose work has been called "as funny and frightening as anything that could have been dreamed up by the Brothers Grimm -- or Mark Twain" (New York Times Book Review).

The Outcasts


Kathleen Kent - 2013
    After escaping the Texas brothel where she'd been a virtual prisoner, Lucinda Carter heads for Middle Bayou to meet her lover, who has a plan to make them both rich, chasing rumors of a pirate's buried treasure. Meanwhile Nate Cannon, a young Texas policeman with a pure heart and a strong sense of justice, is on the hunt for a ruthless killer named McGill who has claimed the lives of men, women, and even children across the frontier. Who--if anyone--will survive when their paths finally cross? As Lucinda and Nate's stories converge, guns are drawn, debts are paid, and Kathleen Kent delivers an unforgettable portrait of a woman who will stop at nothing to make a new life for herself.

By the Rivers of Babylon


Nelson DeMille - 1978
    Covered by F-14 fighters, accompanied by security men, the planes carry warriors, pacifists, lovers, enemies, dignatories - and a bomb planted by a terrorist mastermind. Suddenly they're forced to crash-land at an ancient desert site. Here, with only a handful of weapons, the men and women of the peace mission must make a desperate stand against an army of crack Palestinian commandos - while the Israeli authorities desperately attempt a rescue bid. A story of compulsive excitement, rich in personal drama and political tension that must rank as one of the greatest of our times.

The Tournament


Matthew Reilly - 2013
    Under its charismatic Sultan, Suleiman the Magnificent, it is an empire on the rise. It has defeated Christian fleets. It has conquered Christian cities.Then the Sultan sends out an invitation to every king in Europe: send forth your champion to compete in a tournament unlike any other.We follow the English delegation, selected by King Henry VIII himself, to the glittering city of Constantinople, where the most amazing tournament ever staged will take place.But when the stakes are this high, not everyone plays fair, and for our team of plucky English heroes, winning may not be the primary goal. As a series of barbaric murders take place, a more immediate goal might simply be staying alive…

The Runner


Christopher Reich - 2000
    Now Reich returns to the world of international thrillers with a no-holds-barred powerhouse of a novel set against the seething backdrop of post—World War II Germany....July 1945. U.S. attorney Devlin Judge has come to Europe as part of an international tribunal to try Nazi war criminals. But Judge has his own personal agenda: to find Erich Siegfried Seyss, the man responsible for his brother’s death.An SS officer and former Olympic sprinter, Seyss has just escaped from a POW camp, leaving a trail of bodies in his wake. But he won’t escape Devlin Judge. Between the two men are miles of German countryside ... and the beautiful daughter of one of Nazi Germany’s most powerful families — a woman loved by them both. But as Judge hunts his prey across a devastated nation, he finds himself caught up in a staggering conspiracy. Because Erich Seyss is no rogue SS killer. He is a man running a final race to make one last, unforgettable contribution to the Fatherland. And he is acting on orders from the last person anyone would ever suspect.