Kim

If society collapsed, could you survive? When Morgan Carter's car breaks down 250 miles from his home, he figures his weekend plans are ruined. But things are about to get much, much worse: the country's power grid has collapsed. There is no electricity, no running water, no Internet, and no way to know when normalcy will be restored - if it ever will be.

Proving that the grand Western tradition is alive and well, over four million Ralph Compton books are now in print. After years of driving cattle and wearing a ranger's badge, disaffected Texan Ed Wright retires - intent on drowning his sorrows with whiskey. But then, widowed rancher Unita Nance - a mighty fine woman, any cowboy would agree - storms into Rosie's Shamrock Saloon and carts Ed's inebriated, six-foot frame out into the sunshine with a wheelbarrow. She has one last job for him, and she won't take no for an answer.

After pursuing a cold-blooded murderer all the way to Nevada, Texas Ranger Emmett Strong is returning home to San Antonio - but not alone. He's found a girl he longs to marry. Finding someone to tie the knot for them is proving to be a challenge, however, owing to the fact that she's the daughter of Chinese immigrants. Along the way, there's a ruckus in El Paso's Wild Hog Saloon, and by noon the next day, folks are convinced it was Emmett and his compadres who robbed the saloon owner and beat him up..

When Matthew Kerney returns to his ranch in the beautiful San Andres Mountains after serving in Sicily during World War II, he must not only fight to recover physically and emotionally from a devastating war injury, but he must also battle attempts by the US Army to seize control of his land for expanded weapons testing.

In 2003, the Special Forces soldiers entered an area later called "the most dangerous place in Afghanistan". Here, where the line between civilians and armed zealots was indistinct, they illustrated the Afghan proverb "I destroy my enemy by making him my friend." Fry recounts how they were seen as welcome guests rather than invaders. Soon after their deployment ended, the Pech Valley reverted to turmoil. Their success was never replicated.

Little Bighorn and Custer are names synonymous in the American imagination with unmatched bravery and spectacular defeat. Mythologized as Custer's Last Stand, the June 1876 battle has been equated with other famous last stands, from the Spartans' defeat at Thermopylae to Davy Crockett at the Alamo.