Akron Public Library

When Gloriana Traft came to Arizona to visit her tenderfoot brother Jim, trouble was rampant in Yellow Jacket. The notorious Hash Knife Outfit of rustlers and gunmen were stealing the ranchers' cattle and terrorizing the beautiful valley. But Gloriana, innocent to the brutal ways of the West, wanted to meet a real desperado. And when she did, Gloriana was the frightened captive of the most dangerous killer in the gang, and facing an ordeal that would...

Johnstone Country. Where it’s never quiet on the Western front. Life on the straight and narrow is easier said than done for a pair of crooks like Jimmy “Slash” Braddock and Melvin “Pecos Kid” Baker. But these reprobates are doing their damnedest to make an honest go of it. They’ve managed to safely deliver a church organ to a mountain parish when their sometime employer—Chief U.S. Marshal Luther T. “Bleed-’m-So” Bledsoe—recruits...

"Two lifelong friends, a bartender and a pastor, decide to trade places the week before Christmas and end up finding love along the way in this delightful novel from the queen of holiday stories, #1 New York Times bestselling author Debbie Macomber. Peter Rhinehart and Hank Meyer are best friends, but their lives couldn't be more different. Peter is a local pastor who is dedicated to his community. He spends his time visiting the flock, attending...

Bryon and Mark have been inseparable best friends from childhood, but now, at sixteen, they both sense they are growing apart. When Byron discovers that Mark is pushing dope to young kids, he must fce a decision that might destry their longtime friendship.

East is only fifteen, but he's already a seasoned gang member, hardened and savvy from a youth spent on the streets of South Central Los Angeles. So when the cops bust a stash house and arrest his uncle, East feels ready to step up and do a man's job - even if it means finding and killing a key witness. What East isn't ready for, what nothing in his life prepared him for, is the journey it will take to reach his target. Because this witness is hiding...

Jamie MacCallister remembers the Alamo—especially one brave frontiersman who died fighting there. Now the fallen veteran’s granddaughter needs Jamie’s help. She’s found a letter written by her grandfather with a map to the spot where Alamo legend Jim Bowie supposedly hid a fortune in silver and gold. Jamie never believed the story. Countless treasure hunters had scoured the area and come up empty handed. But his friend’s grandaughter is...

The good: New York's Lombardo's Steak House is famous for three reasons, the menu, the clientele, and now, the gruesome murder of an infamous mob lawyer. Effortlessly, the assassin slips through the police's fingers, and his absence sparks a blaze of accusations about who ordered the hit. The bad: Seated at a nearby table, reporter Nick Daniels is conducting a once-in-a-lifetime interview with a legendary baseball bad boy. In the chaos, he accidentally...

"STAY THE HELL OUT OF FORT WORTH." Those were the last words uttered by a dying man who was the boomtowns most recent sheriff. Rail-thin and half starved, desperate cowpuncher Jess Casey ignores the travel advice. Instead, Jess not only enters Fort Worth, he becomes the new sheriff, inheriting the body-riddled little slice of heaven called Hells Half Acre, the wide-open, deadliest piece of real estate on the American frontier. Hells Half Acre...

Rosario Gomez, having given up gang life after his brother was killed, is working hard to be a good father and earn a promotion at his job when a friend from the barrio shows up and tempts him back into his old ways.

"Settling the American West required true grit, fortitude, and when necessary, shedding blood. It also required men like Preacher and MacCallister to enforce peace in a land where the law was scarce--and justice was delivered from the barrel of a gun... Wagon trains carrying immigrants along the Oregon Trail are falling prey to outlaws. Most families surrender their valuables and goods peacefully, but anybody brave enough to resist gets a bullet....