Western Action

There will never be another Western writer like Louis L’Amour. A legendary author and indisputably the greatest storyteller in his genre of all time, L’Amour captivated millions of readers and has sold well over three hundred million copies of his works, which includes nearly ninety novels and countless short stories. Mistakes Can Kill You highlights an essential selection featuring nine of L’Amour’s earlier short stories, sometimes written under the pen name Jim Mayo, that exemplify the rugged morality of the best Western writing.

As Lieutenant Rory Nance lay dying after the battle of Cedar Creek in the Shenandoah Valley, Captain Josh Logan gave his word to his best friend. Now, two years later, deep in the Comancheria, Josh Logan rides to accomplish his dying friend’s request. As he rides through the rolling, West Texas hills, blood-thirsty Comanches could wait in the next ravine or around the next hill. Yet, he is determined to fulfill his promise.

When Ben Savage receives a telegram informing him that an old friend died - and left him his saloon - he’s not sure what to think. Western saloons are as wild as it gets, full of rowdy ranchers and cocky cowboys, high-stakes gamblers and low-life drifters, hard liquor and easy women. Then there’s the occasional outlaw gang. But when Savage travels to Buzzard’s Bluff, Texas, to check out his inheritance, he meets the saloon’s lovely manager, Rachel Baskin, and has a change of heart.

Exiled from the Smoky Mountains for gunning down a man in self-defense, Breck Wallace tries to make a new home in St. Louis, even tries his hand at romance, but some men are too wild to settle down. Breck is soon back on the trail, where a vicious gang of trappers, after his goods, picks up his scent and begins to dog his every step, until Breck's only choice is to bed down for the winter with a tribe of friendly Indians.

The adventure begins for Falcon MacCallister in the town of Tombstone, where his new-found friend Doc Holliday gets an invitation to a dance of death at the O.K. Corral. From there, Falcon will travel from the Arizona border to the shadows of the Dragoon Mountains, pursuing a murderous band of Apaches led by the Mescalero chief Naiche. His warriors are bent on the slaughter of every man, woman and child they encounter on their way to a war council with Chief Gokaleh, better known as the infamous Geronimo.

Missouri, 1860. Rumors of war between the North and South are spreading across the land. In rural Green County, many of the farmers are already choosing sides. But not John Zachary. His loyalties lie with his family first - and his heart is telling him to go west. Hoping to build a new life in the fertile valleys of Oregon, he convinces his best friend, Emmitt Braxton, to pack up their families and join him on a wagon train across the Oregon Trail. The journey will be long and hard.

In California, Frank Morgan nearly found a home. But now he’s pulled up stakes and hit the road again, aiming to reach the high desert of Arizona. For Frank, the plan changes when he steps into a saloon in a dusty boom town called Los Angeles. That’s where he learns that his nemesis, Val Dooley, has found a new business: the selling of young women into prostitution, with the victims as young as 12 years old and the survivors ending up drugged and beaten.

At the height of California's Gold Rush, men left everything behind for the chance at striking it rich. Now, some 30 years after its peak, gold fever still entices adventurous Easterners like James Macklin Chance, a poor Pennsylvanian who is drawn to California by the dream of lasting wealth - a dream so powerful he'll stop at nothing to see it through.

Western icon William W. Johnstone, author of the acclaimed Mountain Man series, teams with J. A. Johnstone for this tale that brings together three of his most popular heroes. Preacher, Smoke, and Matt comprise the Jensen family - three generations of legendary frontiersman. When a ruthless cattle baron brings a small army of hired guns to Preacher’s neck of the woods, it falls to the Jensens to stand tall and return fire. And they intend to fight to the last man, because the Jensens never back down from a fight.

No one remembered when he'd come to the mountains - it seemed that Preacher had always been there. He'd seen a great deal in the unmapped mountains and forests of the grand North American frontier. In fact, he'd just told a friend that he wasn't surprised by anything anymore. But Preacher hadn't seen Nova Roma yet. Suddenly, Preacher is faced with the strangest, most dangerous army the High Lonesome has ever seen. It's leader is a blood-mad fanatic right out of the ancient history books. All Preacher's got on his side are his brother mountain men.

Earth Government turned soldiers into cyborgs to terraform Mars. After a decade of hard, lonely work they are little more than the machines as which they are treated—until the arrival of female settlers awakens feelings they have almost forgotten....

In Tennessee, 17-year-old Breckinridge Wallace knew the laws of nature. When his life was in danger, he showed a fearless instinct to fight back. Killing a thug who was sent to kill him got Breckinridge exiled from his Smoky Mountain home. Brutally wounding an Indian attacker earned him an enemy for life....

Conrad Browning had money, a manservant and a mission: to find his missing children and meet them for the first time. He's come as far as Denver, dodged a bullet from a beautiful assassin, and landed in a big buy-in poker tournament against a ruthless heavy-betting cattle baron with a plan of his own - to take this city slicker into the wilderness, and hunt him like an animal. But Rance McKinney doesn't know who he is facing. The son of legendary gunman Frank Morgan, Conrad goes by the moniker of the Loner.

Louis L'Amour was the most decorated author in the history of American letters and a recipient of the Medal of Freedom. Now collected here in a single book are several of Louis L'Amour's finest Western stories the way Mr. L'Amour wrote them. At the time Louis L'Amour was writing, it was common practice for editors to rewrite the manuscript to fit certain publishing criteria. The text of The Strong Land has been restored, and the stories within it appear as Mr. L'Amour intended.

Once he was a young, happily married businessman. Then he lost his wife to human madness and that young man was gone, replaced by the Loner, the wandering son of legendary gunfighter Frank Morgan and the current occupant of a cell in Hell Gate prison. The Loner’s crime? He looked too much like an outlaw who escaped from this very prison. So the Kid teams up with a fellow inmate with an escape plan, vowing to hunt down a look-alike killer on the loose.

He came west to the Rockies as a young runaway and grew into a legend among the already legendary frontier mountain men. They called him Preacher - a name that would become a monument to all who sought adventure in the savage wilderness of America's untamed west. The only man with the skills to lead a wagon train on the last leg of the rugged Oregon trail, Preacher knows they're headed into trouble. It's hard enough for a hundred greenhorns to survive the wilds of the northwest; being pursued by thieving renegade outlaws and Indians with a thirst for gold makes it damn near impossible.

The great state of Texas is a land of opportunity. For outlaws. And horse thieves. And cattle rustlers. Not to mention bank robbers, train robbers, and anything-that-ain’t-nailed-down robbers. The state’s governor, Richard B. Hubbard, is at the end of his rope. He wants to clean up Texas once and for all—and he’s desperate enough to try something crazy: hire a man who can do what the Texas Rangers can’t. A man not tied down by a wife or children. Or rules. Who’s not afraid to go outside the law.

This second book in William W. Johnstone's classic First Mountain Man series finds Preacher leading a wagon train of settlers into the Rockies - and through dangerous territory. Trapped on the Continental Divide by a blinding snowstorm, Preacher must fend off the gunfire of the wicked Pardee gang, and a band of marauding Utes.

Framed for murder, Dewey "Mac" McKenzie is running for his life. Though Mac's never even made a pot of coffee, he talks his way onto a cattle drive heading west as a chuckwagon cook. Turns out he has a natural talent for turning salt pork and dried beans into culinary gold. He's as good with a pot and pan as he is with a gun, which comes in handy on a dangerous trail drive beset with rustlers, hostile Indians, ornery weather, and deadly stampedes. Mac can hold his own with any cowboy twice his age. At least until the real showdown begins . . .

Alan Le May’s Western novels are widely considered classics in the genre, and the movie adaptation of The Searchers was named AFI’s Greatest Western Movie of All Time. When Martin Pauley and Amos Edwards return to their Texas homestead to find a burning ruin, they set out to find Amos’ missing daughter - and exact revenge on the Comanche responsible for the attack.