Showing results by author "Jack R. Stanley" in All Categories

Ethan Andrews killed a man in Missouri. On purpose. Many would consider the killing justified, but he couldn't take the chance. He thought of himself as a killer. Rather than ruin his family name back in Kentucky, he changed his name and fled west. Along the way to starting a new life, he acquired a new family. He still had to protect them with his gun. It's an adventure story of the American West where only the strong thrive.

Just before World War I, a young American airman put his bi-plane down on the Mexican side or the Rio Grande. Barney Linedecker always got air sick if he was more than four feet off the ground. While he thought he was at least safely back on the ground, it turned out he was actually captured by a second rate Mexican bandit who wanted to be as famous as Pancho Villa. This was the bandit leader’s big break because he suddenly had what Villa does not, an air force. Also kidnapped by the bandits was an oversexed south Texas rancher’s daughter who had the hots for the young pilot.

The War of Secession is over. However, between the Rio Grande and the Nueces Rivers, murderers, rapists, horse thieves, and cattle rustlings dominate the land. Trace LaFon and Xavier Falcon are called back into service with the Texas Rangers under Captain Leander McNelly - and they become part of a new Special Ranger Force to save the Nueces Strip. At this time and in this place, Texas needs hard men to a hard job - to draw a hard line for law and order.

What if in the dark, small hours of a morning, you discovered Secret Service agents at your front door telling you that you were now the President of the United States? That’s the way it happened to Porter Randall, a Texas Panhandle surgeon turned novelist who had been persuaded by friends to run for Congress for just a couple of terms. Could a non-politician without rampant ambition or a lust for power fulfill this office? What would happen to the country? Porter becomes The Reluctant President and finds out.

Muleshoe is a not-so-modern Texas Panhandle town of about 5,000 - on Saturday - during the county fair. But Jarvis Dickle’s been murdered there - three nails in the top of his head. Nobody liked Jarvis - but then nobody even knew who he really was. His daughter, Lottie, a local disc jockey, is surprised it hadn’t happened before. Down at the Coffee Mug, they’re takin’ bets on who did the town a favor. But ol’ time Sheriff Asa Hunt knows you need to nip this kind of thing in the bud before it can become like a fresh cow patty on a hot day.

After the Civil War, two young Texas Rangers are fighting a different war along the frontier of West Texas. Apaches from Mexico raid up across the Rio Grande into Texas attacking homesteaders and settlers. The savages steal, rape, and murder farmers, ranchers, merchants and their families. All that stands between the onslaught of savage attacks and a peaceful life are the Rangers.

Texas never had a law against being stupid. Young Trace LaFon counted that a good thing or he'd never have lived long enough to become a Texas Ranger or partnered up with Xavier Falcon. But the two become a part of history the very first time the Rangers were ever used as an arm of law enforcement in the Lone Star state.

Joshua Guymon is a small town sheriff in the mostly Mormon Star Valley of Wyoming Territory. This is back in the days when to be Mormon was to be an outsider in the American West. His younger prodigal brother seems to have settled down from his wild ways and married. Joshua goes to meet his brother's bride and see how the newlyweds are doing on a ranch in the southern part of the territory. But trouble has a way of finding Joshua, from a crooked gambler to a highwayman to an escaped prison killer.

"A love for sex and poetry were the only things my daughter got out of college," an elderly lady says. Now, she runs an escort service. One of her girls was murdered last year. Did my daughter have anything to do with it? Scott Kaven, a former Houston homicide detective turned private eye, takes on the case involving a Green Bay, Wisconsin, escort service and its striking owner. With the confidence and experience of a successful cop, a smart ass attitude, and a sharp sense of humor of his own, Kaven gets things done.