To escape her husband, a wife embarks on a radical adventure Her name is Jennifer Hartman, or perhaps Dorothy Holder. She has birth certificates that say both. She got the names from old obituary files, and then went to the county clerk to ask for new copies. Her real name doesn't matter, because her former life is gone. Since she went on the run, she has surprised herself with her ingenuity. She makes her way to Los Angeles and takes a room in an...

A lawyer tracks a gang of amateur kidnappers across the southwestern desert By the time Carl Oakley gets to Soledad, the town is an empty shell. But the lawyer isn't looking for the city; he wants to find Terry Conniston. A tire track proves that her sports car passed through not long ago, but Carl doubts Terry was driving. Likely it was Floyd Rymer behind the wheel. With his brother and two other drug-addled thugs, Floyd fronts a second-rate jazz...

A rollicking adventure starring a young Theodore Roosevelt In 1884, Teddy Roosevelt's political career is dead in the water. A New York state assemblyman with eyes on national office, he finds his ambitions thwarted just months after his wife and infant daughter pass away. Frustrated by politics, he retires to the American West to ride, ranch, and hunt buffalo in the Dakota Badlands. Nobody tells him that the buffalo are gone.   He arrives in Dakota...

A mental patient escapes his institution in search of bloody vengeance When rain falls on the mental hospital, Calvin Duggai knows it's time to leave. Institutionalized after he abandoned five men to die in the Mojave Desert, he has spent years planning escape and revenge. For months he has tunneled through the asylum's bathroom wall, waiting for a night when rain will cover his tracks. As water soaks the grounds of the silent institution, Duggai...

A United States Air Force bomber threatens to obliterate New York The whole city sees the plane circling: an ancient B-17 bomber flying inches above the tops of Manhattan's skyscrapers. As it nears Midtown, its bomb-bay doors creak open, giving the citizens a terrifying view of its five-hundred-pound bombs. No one knows why it's there. As city officials attempt to identify it, the B-17's pilot issues his demands. He wants five million dollars in unmarked...

Years after going into hiding, a witness must run from the mob again Fred Mathieson was not an ordinary witness against the mob. He was never in the organization, and didn't testify against gangster Frank Pastor to save his own skin. Mathieson is a lawyer, and took the stand simply from a desire to do the right thing. His conscience destroyed his life, but he built a new one. Now his long-ago testimony is about to put him and his family back in danger....

Two short novels from a master of hard-boiled storytelling Simon Crane is an ex-cop with a bad leg, a small pension, and a former lover, Joanne, who works for Sal Aiello, undisputed crime boss of a dusty southwestern city. When Aiello and his millions disappear, the city's underworld whips into a frenzy that could get Joanne killed. To save her life, Crane must find the dead mobster's cash before anyone else does. Somebody put a hit out on Aiello,...

Eleven soldiers attempt to hold a river crossing in the middle of the desert The Colorado River's most vital point for American settlement is the ferryboat at Yuma Crossing. When the gold rush begins, a gang of white outlaws seizes the ferry from the local Yuma tribesmen, who have operated the crossing for decades. The US Army rousts the outlaws, but the high command decides to keep the crossing rather than return it to the Yuma. No one considers...

An Arizona sheriff takes an impossible job: arresting Wyatt Earp Wyatt Earp rides the train to Tucson alongside his brother Morgan, who makes the trip in the comfort of a wooden casket. Earp comes from Tombstone, along with his two surviving brothers and Doc Holliday, on a mission of vengeance for his murdered kin. They suspect Frank Stillwell of being the shooter, and are not interested in the bandit's denials. Earp is hardly off the train before...

In the wake of a chilling attack, an ordinary man decides to take revenge When his wife and daughter are attacked in their home, Paul Benjamin is enjoying a three-martini lunch. A professional man, soft around the middle, Paul lives happily isolated from the rougher side of New York City. As he nurses his gin headache, a call comes from his son-in-law asking him to come to the hospital. In a few hours, his world will collapse around him.   As Paul...