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...

The struggle of three brothers to stay together after their parent's death and their quest for identity among the conflicting values of their adolescent society. When it was first published in 1967, The Outsiders defied convention with its immediate, deeply sympathetic portrayal of Ponyboy and his struggle to find a place for himself in a difficult world. Thirty years later, it speaks to teenagers as powerfully as ever. Puffin is proud to publish...

"This is a random universe," Reacher says. "Once in a blue moon things turn out just right." This isn't one of those times. Reacher is on a Greyhound bus, minding his own business, with no particular place to go, and all the time in the world to get there. Then he steps off the bus to help an old man who is obviously just a victim waiting to happen. But you know what they say about good deeds. Now Reacher wants to make it right. An elderly couple...

"Michael Mace, head of security at a top-secret research facility, opens his eyes in a makeshift morgue twenty-four hours following an event in which everyone perished--including him and his best friend, Shelby Shrewsberry. Having awakened with an extraordinary ability unlike anything he--or anyone else--has ever imagined, Michael is capable of being as elusive as a ghost. He sets out to honor his late friend by helping Nina Dozier and her son, John,...

Harry Bosch is in the middle of a major case in Los Angeles when his world is turned upside down with one phone call. His usual Sunday morning call to his daughter, who lives with her mother in Hong Kong, is answered by a stranger. Harry has stumbled into the middle of a kidnapping. His daughter is being held until her mother, Eleanor Wish, can win enough money in the poker rooms of nearby Macau to buy her back. Bosch drops everything to go to his...

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...

As violence overwhelms the state, Bennett is torn between protecting his hometown and saving New York City. A partner in his investigations, federal prosecutor Tara McLellan, brings him new weapons for the battle and an attraction that endangers his relationship with Mary Catherine.

"As a former Texas Ranger, Charles "Catfish Charlie" Tuttle spent the better part of his life catching outlaws. Happily retired in Wolfwater, Texas, he's content just catching fish--namely Bubba, the wily old catfish who lives in the pond near Charlie's shack and keeps slipping off Charlie's hook. He also likes hanging out with his trusty tomcat, Hooligan Hank, and tossing back bottles of mustang berry wine. Sure, his glory days are behind him. There's...