Akron Public Library

Originally published in 1952, Tom Lea's The Wonderful Country opens as mejicano pistolero Martín Bredi is returning to El Puerto (El Paso) after a fourteen-year absence. Bredi carries a gun for the Chihuahuan warlord Cipriano Castro and is on Castro's business in Texas. Fourteen years earlier-shortly after the end of the Civil War-when he was the boy Martin Brady, he killed the man who murdered his father and fled to Mexico where he became Martín...

Alton Burwick was itching to make a big land grab at Yellow Butte. But first, he had to drive the tough band of squatters from the range. So he rounded up a bunch of killers for the job, and hired Tom Kendrick to ramrod the crew, never mentioning that they would be fighting innocent men and women. Suddenly Kedrick realized he would have to do something fast--before Burwick's mob turned Yellow Butte into a wasteland.

Kilkenny wasn't looking for trouble when he entered the Clifton House stage station, but trouble found him when a reckless youngster called Tetlow challenged him, drew his gun, and paid for it with his life. Looking to escape the fast-draw reputation he never wanted, Kilkenny settles in the lonely mountains of Utah, planning to ranch in a high, lush valley. Jared Tetlow is a powerful rancher who is determined to run his vast herd on the limited grasslands...

After a Texas frontier family is massacred by Comanches, Amos Edwards and his nephew search for Edwards' niece, who had been taken captive during the raid

This vivid American saga conjures up the world of cattle ranchers in the 1880's, focusing on a Montana community's boisterous, wanderlusting eccentrics as they chase after love and unbridled ambitions. At its center is Lat Evans, a good hearted cowboy who strikes out from Oregon to Montana on a cattle drive, determined to succeed as a rancher. Gradually though, he discerns how the perils of the world, especially human nature, can conspire to frustarate...

The book begins with the introduction of your standard hero; Buck Mason, a straight talking straight shooting cowboy who has a problem with Ole Gunderstrom surrounding a land dispute that has been going on for 18 years. His visit is most likely not entirely about this dispute but more to garner information about Gunderstrom's daughter Olga who he sent out East for a proper education. Buck and Olga had been friends since childhood but Ole Gunderstrom...