Matt Braun

On October 26, 1881, three outlaws lay dead in a dusty vacant lot in Tombstone, Arizona. Standing over them - Colts smoking - were Wyatt Earp, his two brothers Morgan and Virgil, and a gun-slinging gambler named Doc Holliday....

America's richest legends come from the frontier - from the land where the events of a single moment might erase the lines between law and lawlessness, between safety and mortal danger....

Earl Brannock was a gambling man who fled the fires of the Civil War and found a boomtown called Denver - in a land being built on dreams, luck, and gold....

The carefully selected stories in this collection are vibrant proof that the great American West is a fertile ground to storytellers....

Matt Braun turns the classic elements of tough men and rough land into westerns that ring with authenticity....

A rare breed of bulldog and bloodhound, private detective Luke Starbuck has been hired to ferret out the Judas working for the Central Pacific—a mastermind behind a string of train robberies. The target: gold shipments from the Frisco mint....

When Luke Starbuck takes on a wealthy banker as a client, the only thing more compelling than the paycheck is his prey. The James-Younger gang has confounded countless detectives, including the men of the Pinkerton Agency....

Texas rancher Ben Langham left his sprawling inheritance to the man he trusted most: Luke Starbuck. Once Starbuck had dreamed of having land of his own. Now he dreams of finding the man who gunned down Langham - and bringing him to justice....

Bill Tilghman was the real thing, a lawman who wore his badge for one reason alone: to bring criminals to justice. Master novelist Matt Braun captures the final days of this extraordinary manhunter—when he faces a heroic fight on the bloody corrupt streets of Cromwell, Oklahoma....

John Wesley Hardin's powderkeg temper earned him twelve bodies by age twenty—and a place at the top of the Texas MOST WANTED list. Now a happy husband and a father, he thinks his fighting days are over and done. Until he's ambushed by an angry loser in a local poker game....

It's 1915. In Europe, men are dying in trenches. In Washington, sentiment is growing for war against the Kaiser. And in Mexico, an explosive plot is set in motion by a German agent, a deposed dictator, and an army of murderous rebels....

Lucas Brokaw is an incredibly wealthy man. But though he has amassed one of the greatest fortunes in the world, he is without an heir. Looking death in the face, he decides to leave his money to whoever can prove to be his reincarnated self....

In a place called No Man's Land, Texas rancher Ben Langham hired Luke Starbuck for his loyalty and toughness gained by riding with Rip Ford's Texas volunteers....

For decades, the Texas plains ran with the blood of natives and settlers, as pioneers carved out ranch land from ancient Indian hunting grounds and the US Army turned the tide of battle....

Print Oliver gave his blood and his soul for the Confederacy. Then he came home to find his family ranch under siege from Union carpetbaggers and his neighbors turned against him....

In the Texas Panhandle, Newt Bascom and Sam Jordan are stock detectives who have the brains to outwit most rustlers - and the brawn to outfight the rest.

Ben Thompson carved out a name for himself as a gambler and a shootist - from Dodge City to the Rio Grande. But settling down in Austin with a wife and young son didn't settle Ben's taste for the sporting life....

Cole Braddock, a Western detective, is hired to take on the Santa Fe Ring, a secret conspiracy of businessmen and politicians determined to gain control of New Mexico....

A band of vicious thieves has drawn the best man that Wells Fargo can send: the rangy, mysterious Chicago-based Pinkerton agent named Ash Tallman....

In California, the Southern Pacific Railway was prying the West wide open, and the land was worth its weight in gold....