Braden isn't looking for trouble. He is just a ranch hand, out looking for stray horses. But trouble finds him. He hears about someone doing something pretty low and getting away with it, and it starts to work on his mind. Then the man who told him is found dead. Lots of folks would just turn away from it, forget about it and move on. But Braden isn't most folks. No, he has to look into it a little. That is his first mistake. The more he looks, the more he finds—and the more trouble finds ...

If you have grown weary of SEX and VIOLENCE—If you feel you have overdosed with accounts of TAWDRY LUST, POLITICAL CORRUPTION, and BRUTAL MURDERS—Try a refreshing change. Sip from the cup of comedy, parody, and satire, laced now and then with poetry and song, topped with a dollop of pristine ROMANCE. Yes, gentle reader, you may fortify yourself against the VILE DEGRADATION and CRUEL INJUSTICES of the modern age by sampling from the medicinal tonic of the ADVENTURES OF THE RAMROD RIDER!

JOHN D. NESBITT FOUR - TIME WINNER OF THE SPUR AWARDEdward Dawes is a small boy when a stranger comes to call and shoots down his grandfather. Ed remembers what the assassin looked like. Years later, working in a blacksmith shop, Ed sees the man, learns his name, and finds out he works for a rancher named Mort Ramsey.Ed learns to do ranch work so he can work his way into that world. He meets an old drunk who knows a great deal, and he meets a girl named Ravenna, who is an o...

Lane Weller is a man who is looking for something bigger than himself to believe in. He finds it with Cora McGavin, a woman who is also looking for something more than she has in life now. Unfortunately, Cora is married, and her husband is a bullying sort who always wants things done his way. As a result, Lane becomes something of an outcast, riding the lonesome range. Through the course of events, he has to decide whether his love with Cora is the real thing or just something to lie about...

Travis Quinn doesn't have much luck picking friends. First, a friend gets him fired from a ranch. Then he heads down the Powder River, meeting another "friend" who puts in a good word and gets him hired at the Lockhart Ranch. And, if the rumors are true, this friend might just get Travis killed.

With a lot of rustling going on in the area, tensions are high and rumors are flying. Word is going around that some of the larger ranchers have hired a gunman named Wolf Carlton to stop the rustling and protect their cattle. And now a couple of the small ranchers have been found shot to death. Unfortunately for Spencer Prescott, some of the rumors are about him. Some people think that Spencer, not Wolf, is the one killing the competition. Even worse, some folks think Spencer is behind the...

A Jimmy Clevis NovelJimmy Clevis is out of work and needs some money. So when an old man named Tull asks him to do a quick job for him, Clevis agrees. All Clevis has to do is head south to Paloma Springs to find Tull’s son. Sounds like easy money, right? Wrong. Clevis isn’t just riding into Paloma Springs—-he’s riding straight into a tangled net of lies, stealing, blackmail, hidden identities . . . and murder.

JOHN D. NESBITT FOUR - TIME WINNER OF THE SPUR AWARDDevon Frost is an artist who goes to a remote place called Tinaja, in New Mexico Territory, to draw old fallen-in buildings and to try to find his artistic vision.In Tinaja, where everyone speaks Spanish, he hears of a picturesque old church on a large hacienda. The owner, Don Felipe, gives him permission to spend time at the site and sketch the church. The owner’s stepdaughter, Petra, comes to visit with him, and the step...

This collection contains seven works of fiction ranging in length from short story to novella. The stories take place in rural California from 1964 to 1970, and they continue the mystery/noir style in which John D. Nesbitt has gained recognition. The world of these stories is born out of a vision of hard-edged realism, in which decent characters struggle with the circumstances of a hard-working life as well as with amoral drifters, opportunists, and criminals. The romance is spare, and the...

When Tip Creston comes to the town of Greenwood, he learns of the disappearance of a fifteen-year-old Romanian girl ten years earlier. Before long, a neighboring wheat farmer is found dead. Suspicion falls on a rancher who has been carrying on with the farmer’s wife, but there is no compelling motive. Then Tip learns that the wheat farmer was in collusion with the owner of the grain elevator to embezzle wheat.The disconsolate boyfriend of the missing girl is obsessed with the case ...

JOHN D. NESBITT FOUR - TIME WINNER OF THE SPUR AWARDWhen Will Dryden is let out of jail, a woman named Mrs. Welles tells him her husband, Al Vetch, is missing and she needs someone to try to find him.Dryden hears there might be a job at a ranch called the Redstone, where a young cowhand was found dead. Dryden meets Ingram, the foreman; Max Aden, a troublemaker; Donovan, the owner; Blanche, who runs the kitchen; and Pearl, an Indian girl who works in the kitchen. Donovan see...

Pete Garnett hadn’t planned on shooting anybody. But when he spotted the two hardcases threatening a helpless girl, he didn’t have much choice . . . and they fired first. He was just doing what he had to do, and that should have been the end of it. Trouble was, the two had a partner that Pete didn’t see. But the third man saw Pete, all right, and it wouldn’t be long before he tried to get rid of the girl who could identify him and the man who killed his friends.