#1 NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • In 1970, one of Mississippi's more colorful weekly newspapers, The Ford County Times, went bankrupt. To the surprise and dismay of many, ownership was assumed by a 23 year-old college dropout, named Willie Traynor.The future of the paper looked grim until a young mother was brutally raped and murdered by a member of the notorious Padgitt family. Willie Traynor reported all the gruesome details, and his newspaper beg...

The King of TortsClay Carter has been at the office of the public defender too long and, like most of his colleagues, dreams of a better job in a real firm. When he reluctantly takes the case of a young man charged with a random street killing, he assumes it is just another of the many senseless murders that hit D.C. every week. As he digs into the background of his client, Clay stumbles on a conspiracy too horrible to believe. He suddenly finds himself in the middl...

From the American West to the Siberian coast, from Hollywood to the boxing ring, here are timeless tales of war, mystery, romance, crime, and punishment as only Louis L'Amour can tell them.These stories are vintage L'Amour:• A hard-bitten cattle driver is pitted against a man trying to steal his woman, the disappearance of a thousand head of cattle, and a plot to frame him for murder. . . .• A private eye visits a remote mining town on a case involvin...

In Ride the Dark Trail, Louis L’Amour tells the story of Logan Sackett, a cynical drifter who changes his ways to help a widow keep her land.Logan Sackett is wild and rootless, riding west in search of easy living. Then he meets Emily Talon, a fiery old widow who is even wilder than he is. Tall and lean, Em is determined to defend herself against the jealous locals who are trying to take her home. Logan doesn’t want to get involved—until he finds out that ...

In Mustang Man, Louis L’Amour takes Nolan Sackett on a dangerous journey into family betrayal, greed, and murder.When Nolan Sackett met Penelope Hume in a cantina at Borregos Plaza, the girl immediately captured his attention. That she was heir to a lost cache of gold didn’t make her any less desirable. But Penelope isn’t the only one after her grandfather’s treasure; Sylvie, Ralph, and Andrew Karnes, distant relatives with no legal claim to the gold, are ...

This priceless collection of once lost stories brings to life a time of desperate violence and true courage in a wide-open country of fortune seekers and dreamers, lawbreakers and pioneers.A newly sworn-in marshal must outwit a mysterious killer who’s fleecing his neighbors while secretly cutting their throats. . . .A young drifter, wounded in a gunfight, finds a chance to change his ways—but he must be willing to pay with his life. . . .A fiercely ...

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 ...

The open West was a land where wanderers could find themselves a home—one to fight for, be changed by, sometimes to die for. Jed Asbury was one such journeyman, taking on the identity of a dead person. Allen Ring was another: He’d won his plot of land in a card game only to find he had to win again with a gun. From a has-been boxer to a ranch hand taking on his bosses’ troubles, the characters in these classic Louis L’Amour short stories are all “riding for the brand”—staying loyal to what...

Louis L’Amour is now one of the most iconic Western writers of all time, but once upon a time he was Jim Mayo, a regular writer for the pulps. Some of the tales he wrote in those days stuck with him enough that he later revised and expanded them into novels. But there was a special magic to the originals, and after research and restoration, these stories appear here now in their original form.In “The Trail to Peach Meadow Cañon,” Mike Bastian, taken in by the legendary outlaw Ben C...

**Classic tales that capture the heroic and indomitable spirit of our great landIncludes six unabridged stories!**The six stories in this collection run the spectrum of human emotions as they transport us from the fading majesty of the Old West to the lonely canyons of one man’s mind. These classic tales of adventure, mystery, mysticism, and suspense epitomize the uniquely American yearning for connection and roots, justice and love, as only L’Amour can. Here is a diverse g...

Ross Harney had made his decision. He sat in the middle of all he owned: a splendid Appaloosa gelding, a fine California saddle, a .44 Winchester rifle, and two walnut-stocked Colt .44 pistols. These were his all. It was a life that had left him rich in experience but poor in goods of the world. He had known the hard-fisted reality of cold winters, dry ranges, and the dusty bitterness of cattle drives. He had fought Comanches and rustlers, hunted buffalo and horse thieves. But now he was g...