The Bad Old Days of Montana celebrates the state’s glorious and rowdy past. Many people born and bred here relish just how “bad” things used to be: the terrain, the inhabitants and especially the quality of whiskey. It almost goes without saying that Montana had all the characteristic wild west elements — and in abundance! The chapters focus on the infamous and notorious rather than the law-abiding and civic-minded settlers. These pages, like the state, recount the tales of people who came...

FINALIST FOR THE 2021 COLORADO BOOK AWARDThe Bad Old Days of Colorado celebrates the state’s glorious and rowdy past. Many people born and bred here relish just how “bad” things used to be: the terrain, the inhabitants and especially the quality of whiskey. It almost goes without saying that Colorado had all the characteristic Wild West elements—and in abundance! The chapters focus on the infamous and notorious rather than the law-abiding and civic-minded ...

Market Street Madam tells the story of Annie Ryan, a woman who is running a second-rate brothel in 1890s Denver with an eye toward expansion. By chance she encounters Lydia Chambers, a society woman suffering from a laudanum habit and a bad marriage, who owns a prized property on the infamous Market Street. Annie's fortunes at the brothel turn on her niece Pearl, a pretty young girl swept up in Denver's underworld of jealousy, booze, and vice--until murder stalks the good-time girls and pu...

2025 SPUR AWARDS FINALISTThis book celebrates the history and culture of the western horse, its ability to capture the popular imagination, and the means by which it has come to symbolize the American West.Beginning in the 1500s, The Western Horse delves into the origins and variations of the western breeds, their role in the expansion and settlement of the West, and the lawless element they attracted. The 1800s is when the stereotypes of Western Americana ...

Where Cowboys Roam is a collection of fourteen Western themed short stories from ten unique writers that spin yarns capturing the feel of the West from both yesterday and today.Each story in this collaborative collection depicts various aspects of life in a section of American history know as the Old West.

RIDE ALONG INTO DANGERTraveling under an alias, the last thing gunman Clip Haynes wanted was attention. But Basin City needed a town-taming marshal, and a cold-blooded murderer was hiding behind Haynes’s real name. Now Haynes was coming out of hiding to protect his honor, save a town, and catch a killer—even if it cost him his life.Lou Morgan was as tough as they came. But it wasn’t just the money or the challenge that motivated him to take on a suicide job involving a buri...

Barnabus Pike is no gunfighter and not much of a street fighter. Eddie Holt is a black boxer in a white man's world. They've both taken their share of hard knocks. Now they're looking to survive a brutal winter in a remote Montana line shack, collect their pay, and settle down for good. Then they cross paths with a hardworking Irish immigrant and his beautiful, spirited sister, who've been burned off their land. It's a fight Pike and Holt don't want, don't need, and don't dare turn their b...

Cattlemen ride alone across the open range under the deadly aim of roving desperadoes. . . . Gamblers stake their fortunes and their lives on a deck of cards. . . . Strong-willed señoritas seek independence through an enticing combination of beauty, audacity, and spirit. . . . Lawmen and outlaws walk the same dusty streets and speak a common language: Colt, Winchester, Smith & Wesson. Gritty, tough, and unflinchingly authentic, here is the West as it really was: a land where for every frie...

WHERE THE REAL FRONTIER BEGINSA young cowpuncher stakes a claim that can only be sealed with fists and a .44 Colt. . . . A gunfighter, tired of violence, finds himself pushed down a trail of bloody revenge. . . . From purple sage to gambler’s gold, from a señorita’s tempting smile to a splash of blood in the dust, here are stories with a distinctive L’Amour twist. A quiet farmer defends his honor in a moment of panic and luck . . . only to find true courage on the ...

From Award-winning author, Mike Stotter, comes his first book written under the byline of Jim A. Nelson. In Montana, Big Sky Country, the threat of a ranch war over a new breed of cattle hangs over The Leaning B and the DR ranches. Bloodshed was the last thing on everyone's mind but nevertheless blood is spilt. Hired gunman Will Calhoun soon finds himself elevated to the job of co-owner of The Leaning B, and that's when the real trouble begins. Fists fly and lead kisses the air as the thre...

BOWDRIE, TEXAS RANGERLawman, manhunter, peacemaker—it takes a hard breed of man to survive as a Texas Ranger, but Chick Bowdrie stands head and shoulders above the rest. The rough trails are his home, from the Big Thicket to the Pecos to the border. He’s dried by the desert sun and wind, scarred and toughened by uncounted gun battles, and when you look into his black eyes it’s like looking down the barrels of two .44s with their hammers drawn back. He rides in the name of justice, ...

There is no story more distinctly American than the western and no writer as great a master of the form as Louis L’Amour. In this seventh volume of L’Amour’s collected short stories, you’ll find some of his most popular characters, heroes who have become a part of our cultural legacy, as well as the ordinary men and women whose adventures are chronicled with an immediacy no reader can resist–or ever forget.In Louis L’ Amour’s frontier stories, the American West is the crucible in w...