Cassidy Yates Series: Box Set 1-3 now available on Kindle

The first three Cassidy Yates novels The Outlawed Deputy, The Last Rider from Hell and Yates's Dilemma have now been published as a box set on Kindle.

The book is now available from all good Amazon stores.

Devine goes large

Marshal Jake T. Devine returns to Large Print in his second adventure Devine. I guess neither of the riders look sufficiently tough enough to be Devine, but the background image adds a nice touch.

Pinkerton detective Nimrod Dunn is hired by Lieutenant Governor Maddox Kingsley to infiltrate an outlaw gang. But when Nimrod's cover is blown, an innocent life is lost in the raging gun battle. The fearsome US Marshal Jake T. Devine then sets about bringing the outlaw Cornelius to justice - but his methods are as brutal as those whom he pursues. With Devine's blood-soaked trail making a mockery of the governor's promise to clean up the county, Maddox must call on Nimrod's services once more - to kill Marshal Devine. . .

Bullet Catch Showdown now available

My 30th Black Horse Western is now available to borrow from all good libraries.

The stage magician Malachi Muldoon is the world's most dangerous practitioner of the arcane arts with his performance of the notorious bullet catch. And his show in Bear Creek draws the interest of Adam Clements, and Deputy Hayward Knight, although for very different reasons. While Clements is keen to join Malachi on stage and become part of his act, Hayward is out to try and solve an old mystery: it seems that wherever Malachi Muldoon performs, a trail of bodies is left behind. 
Before long, Adam and Hayward are embroiled in Malachi's web of deception. Can they unmask the guilty when they are forced into a showdown with a man who hides the truth in plain sight?

The Devil's Marshal goes to Large Print

I've received the welcome news that last October's novel The Devil's Marshal will be published as a large print paperback. It'll be my 23rd Linford Western and it should appear late on in 2015.

In a travesty of justice, bounty hunter Brodie Latimer's sister Lucinda is found guilty of murder. Thwarted, when a witness is killed, but convinced of her innocence, he vows to find the real killer and, as more of Hamilton's leading figures die in mysterious circumstances, the clues lead him to Derrick Shelby, a man known as the Devil's marshal. 

The only trouble is, Derrick died a year ago. How can Brodie clear his sister's name and bring the guilty to justice when the killer appears to be the spectre of a long dead lawman?

Yates's Dilemma now on Kindle

My latest Kindle title is now available. Yates’s Dilemma was my 6th Black Horse Western and it first appeared in 2004.

 

 

This was my third Cassidy Yates tale and the first without his sidekick Nathaniel McBain. The tale is a straightforward yarn centring around the mystery of whether Wendell Moon is a cold-blooded killer or just a cold-blooded businessman. With a heap of people wanting to kill Wendell, Cassidy has to keep the peace while struggling to work out whether he should arrest Wendell or protect him.

The original title for this story was Wendell Moon is Back, which the publisher rightly pointed out was an awful title even before considering that it didn’t even sound like a western. They asked for alternate titles and so I decided to provide five. I came up with four rip-snorting titles suggesting lots of gun-toting action quite easily, but I struggled on the fifth and eventually plumped for Yates’s Dilemma. They went with that one.

This change of title rather ruined my blurb where I’d made several references to Wendell Moon’s decision to come back ending with the ominous warning that Wendell Moon is back. That no longer worked and so the blurb got jigged around and a new closing line was added with the even more ominous line that: Real trouble lies ahead! At the time I was amused by that sentence as it felt like the lamest ever line to sell a book, but ten years on it no longer feels so odd.

The other main thing about this book is that I was lucky enough to get my first really classic cover. I still rank it as one of my favourites with both gunfighters being nicely rendered and the setting even being appropriate for one scene.

Anyhow, the book is now available from all good Amazon stores

When Wendell Moon hightailed it out of Monotony, he left in his wake a murdered lawman and a mob braying for his blood. Fifteen years later the word is out – Wendell Moon is back! But, for Sheriff Cassidy Yates, Wendell’s unwelcome return rekindles old vendettas and ignites three days of raging gun battles.

Now the sheriff has the impossible duty of keeping the peace, but as if that isn’t enough Wendell also claims he never killed the lawman!

If Cassidy doesn’t unearth the truth quickly, Wendell’s trigger-happy enemies will deliver their own form of gun-toting justice. Real trouble lies ahead!

Many a mickle makes a muckle

Yes.

Sorry for the lengthy political post, but that's all I have to say on the matter.

The Mystery of Silver Falls

I’m pleased to report that Hale have agreed to publish my latest western The Mystery of Silver Falls.

I usually like to bang on about the inspiration for my stories, but in this case I can’t say too much. The original idea behind the story doesn’t appear until the third act where I hope it’ll be a surprise plot twist and provide a slightly different scenario for the conclusion.

What I can say is that it was one of those ideas that was off-the-wall and which clearly stood no chance of working in a western without making it into a complete fantasy yarn. Except the idea just refused to go away, and the closer I got to writing the part where I had to use the idea, or not, the more I felt that it was the only possible solution to the plot.

So I gritted my teeth, ignored the voice of doubt telling me this was a bad idea, and went for it. I hope it worked, and either way, at least I’ve got it out of my system until the next off-the-wall idea hits me.

Anyhow, the book should appear in 2015 and it’ll be my 32nd Black Horse Western.

When the bridge at Silver Falls was completed, the whole town turned out to watch the first train journey, but Kane Cresswell's bandit gang ensured that the day turned sour. Kane raided the train and in the ensuing chaos, fifty thousand dollars fell into the river, seemingly lost forever.

Wyndham Shelford was determined to find the missing money, but when bodies started washing up in the river, unconventional lawman US Marshal Lloyd Drake arrived. The marshal believed that the train raid wasn't everything it seemed, but with Drake's reckless search for the truth endangering the lives of everyone in town, can Wyndham find the money before it's too late?