From the master of the hard-boiled detective novel and recipient of the Private Eye Writers of America Lifetime Achievement Award comes Loren D. Estleman's next enthralling Amos Walker mystery, Smoke on the Water.

As the smoke from Canadian wildfires chokes Detroit, PI Amos Walker is tasked with investigating a fatal hit-and-run. The victim is Spencer Bennett, a junior law associate with the Waterford Group, and he supposedly had a file of confidential documents on him when he died. But those documents have now gone missing, and the firm is dead set on Walker finding them. As Walker digs deeper into the events leading to Bennett's death, all signs are pointing towards the crash being anything but accidental.

Summer in Detroit was hot enough before the smoke descended, but as the temperature rises and more bodies crop up in connection to the missing file, Walker will have to track down those documents -- and unearth why they were worth killing over -- before it's too late.

Set against the sprawling landscape of the Wild West, this riveting adventure by Spur Award-winning author Loren D. Estleman follows a man on a journey to set his legacy, and the men dedicated to bringing his story to life.

From his youth as a revolutionist to his time as a Deputy U.S. Marshal, aging lawman Iron St. John has become a larger-than-life figure--and in the process, the man has disappeared behind the myth. During his brief, unsuccessful political career, St. John published his memoirs--a sanitized version of his adventures to appeal to the masses. A generation later, the clouded truth of this giant of the Old West has been all but lost.

Now, Buck Jones, a pioneering film star, is vying for a cinematic story that will launch his career to incredible heights. He approaches Emmet Rawlings, a retired Pinkerton detective, to set the record of St. John's life straight once and for all. Twenty years ago, Rawlings accompanied St. John on his final manhunt, and in desperate need for the funding a successful book promises, he dives deep into St. John's past--and his own buried memories--to tell the truth about this part-time hero.

As the story of St. John unfolds, the romance of the period is stripped away to reveal a reality long-forgotten in this unvarnished, heart-racing depiction of the American West by acclaimed author Loren D. Estleman.

From the pen of Spur Award-winning author Loren D. Estleman comes a powerful collection of tales set against the vast and rugged landscapes of the American West.

Beginning with the acclaimed The Bandit, each of these stories dives into an authentic world where gritty outlaws, determined lawmen, and everyday heroes wrestle with morality, survival, and justice.

Estleman's mastery of historical accuracy and vivid, descriptive prose shines through, bringing these Western vignettes to life with unforgettable characters and intense action-a must-read for fans of the Western genre and lovers of timeless storytelling.

The American West endures in the Western stories of Loren D. Estleman... -The Bloomsbury Review

SWIFT JUSTICE AND LEGENDARY GUNSMOKE.

On October 26, 1881, nine men faced off in Tombstone, Arizona Territory, setting the stage for a clash that would echo through history. Within fifteen seconds, the street turned to dust as three men fell, their lives extinguished in a deadly showdown. The remaining six, including the legendary Wyatt Earp and the enigmatic Doc Holliday, survived to face trial-and kill again.

Bloody Season is an epic retelling of the infamous O.K. Corral shootout. Experience the raw, unfiltered brutality of the confrontation between Ike Clanton's cowboys and the Earp brothers by diving into the chaos, courage, and relentless spirit that defined one of the most storied battles of the Wild West. Buy your copy of this action-packed Western today!

Pistol-hot...a revisionist Western classic! -Kirkus Reviews

Loren D. Estleman delivers a haunting and masterful tale of the American West in The Master Executioner.

Oscar Stone is a craftsman unlike any other-his art lies in the gallows, where he ensures death is swift and precise. But as the bodies mount, so do the questions about justice, humanity, and the price of a life spent wielding death.

When a shadow from his past resurfaces, Stone is forced to confront the truth about himself-and the cost of a life spent in the service of death. Set against the gritty backdrop of frontier law and vengeance, Stone's story is one of profound complexity, where morality and duty clash.

Mr. Estleman movingly conveys the brutalizing effects of killing for the law, even when you are terribly good at it. -The Economist

They went out to hunt buffalo-and became the hunted.

The American West was once home to vast herds of buffalo, creatures so numerous they were believed indestructible. Now, only one remains, making a lonely migration toward extinction. Hunting this final beast is The Hider-a relic of another era, a man driven by a quest that borders on myth.

For eighteen-year-old Jeff Curry, the old tracker and his vision of a lone buffalo seem like nothing more than legends. The Hider claims to have followed the animal from Arizona to Oregon, a place where buffalo haven't been seen in over a decade. Seizing the chance for adventure, Jeff joins him, only to find that this journey is far more perilous than he imagined.

When they cross paths with an Indian wrongly accused of murder, the buffalo hunt turns into a manhunt. Now, Jeff is on the run, targeted by both the law and ruthless men who will stop at nothing to see him captured-or killed.

Estleman has no rival-not even Louis L'Amour-in evoking the American Southwest.

-Kirkus Reviews

Eugene Morner. Alias John Miller.

At just twelve years old, he killed his first man on the Great Plains, giving birth to a legend. From the Indian Wars to the Civil War, John Miller's name has become synonymous with death. As a gun for hire, he's played both sides of the law, riding with outlaws and serving as a lawman, his loyalty always for sale to the highest bidder.

From robbing banks to hunting down criminals, his violent path leaves bloodshed in its wake. But no matter how many lives he takes, the last tragic showdown will reveal the truth of the man behind the gun.

In a world where vengeance and survival blur, John Miller is about to learn the price of a gunman's soul.

Spur Award-winning author Loren D. Estleman crafts a gripping tale of redemption and revenge in Mister St. John.

Irons St. John was once a feared lawman and outlaw hunter, a man whose reputation could quell the wildest frontier. But now, in the twilight of his career, he's a defeated politician, lost in drink and debt-until his past calls him to the hunt once more.

A notorious gang is tearing through the West, and St. John must assemble a posse of misfits-a weathered tracker, a sharpshooter with failing eyes, two outlaws on borrowed time, and a deadly preacher with a dark past-to bring them to justice.

In this high-stakes chase, old grudges resurface, alliances fracture, and the line between hero and villain blurs.

Estleman rivals the finest American novelists with his gritty vision and keen ear. -The Washington Post Book World

Once, there was a world where the heroes were defined by their white clothing and the bad guys always wore black. The town sheriff always gunned down the wild gunslinger while the lady in distress cowered. The Indian was to be feared, not understood, and the white man always saved the day. This was the traditional Western.

But times change, as did the Western. The evolving Western is told from the point of view of blacks, Native Americans, Hispanics, Asians, Jews, Gentiles, Mormons, Catholics, women, and men. It is about America; it is about life. Whether a story's central element is a hangman or a midwife, a piano or a cowboy who hates tomatoes, you may be certain of one thing, if the tale reflects an expanding continent, it reflects the American West.

Loren D. Estleman's most popular characters, PI Amos Walker and hit man Peter Macklin, are together in one story for the first time in Black and White Ball

Detroit hit man Peter Macklin forces private eye Amos Walker to furnish protection for Laurie, Macklin's estranged wife, while Macklin tracks down the party who has threatened to kill her. The man Walker's client suspects cannot be ignored; as his own grown son, Roger Macklin has inherited all the instincts, and acquired all the training, necessary to carry out his threat.

Told partly by Walker in first-person and partly by Macklin in third, Black and White Ball places the detective squarely between two remorseless killers, with death waiting whether he succeeds or fails.

The Ballad of Black Bart: a riveting western novel from Spur Award-Winning Author Loren D. Estleman.

Loren Estleman is my hero.--Harlan Coben

Between July 1875 and November 1883, a single outlaw robbed the stagecoaches of Wells Fargo in California's Mother Lode country a record of twenty-eight times. Armed with an unloaded shotgun, walking to and from the scenes of the robberies, often for hundreds of miles, and leaving poems behind, the infamous Black Bart was fiercely hunted.

Between robberies, Black Bart was known as Charles E. Bolton, a distinguished, middle-aged man who enjoyed San Francisco's entertainments in the company of socialites drawn to his quiet, temperate good nature and upper-class tastes.

Meanwhile, James B. Hume, Wells Fargo's legendary chief of detectives, made Bart's apprehension a matter of personal as well as professional interest.

The Ballad of Black Bart is a duel of wits involving two adversaries of surpassing cleverness, set against the vivid backdrop of the Old West.

Page Murdock, Deputy U.S. Marshal.

In Montana Territory, justice comes in two forms: the slow hammer of the judge's gavel or the swift crack of a gunshot. Page Murdock has mastered both, but he's about to face an enemy as ruthless as they are shadowy. The Stranglers don't bother with trials or prisoners. They dispense their law from the end of a rope, and they have a particular taste for the necks of men who wear badges.

As Murdock tracks the gang across the wild frontier, the Stranglers close in, determined to make him their next victim. With each brutal killing, the noose tightens, forcing Murdock into a deadly showdown where survival means outgunning his enemies-and outrunning their ropes.

Will Montana's most fearless lawman deliver justice, or will the Stranglers take his final breath?

A riveting western novel starring beloved character Page Murdock from Spur Award-winning author Loren D. Estleman

In the spring of 1896, after thirty years spent dispensing justice in the territory of Montana, Judge Harlan Blackthorne expires, leaving Deputy U.S. Marshal Page Murdock, his most steadfast officer, to escort his remains across the continent by rail.

The long journey--interrupted from time to time by station stops for the public to pay its respects and for various marching bands to serenade the departed with his favorite ballad, After the Ball--gives Murdock plenty of opportunity to reflect upon the years of triumphs and tragedies he's seen first hand, always in the interest of bringing justice to a wilderness he, his fellow deputies, and the Judge played so important a role in its settlement.

As the funeral train chugs through prairie, over mountains, and across rivers once ruled by buffalo herds, Indian nations, trappers, cowboys, U.S. Cavalry, entrepreneurs, and outlaws representing every level of heroism, sacrifice, ambition, and vice, Wild Justice provides a capsule history of the American frontier from its untamed beginnings to a civilization balanced on the edge of a new and unpredictable century.

A hot new Amos Walker mystery by a master of the hard-boiled detective novel. Loren Estleman is my hero.--Harlan Coben, New York Times bestselling author

Detroit entrepreneur Carl Fannon hires Walker to trace Emil Haas, his partner, whose sudden disappearance has jeopardized their firm's plans to purchase the historic Sentinel Building. Almost immediately, the missing man shows up and asks the detective to meet him in the empty Sentinel to discuss a top-secret concern. Walker complies, only to find not Haas, but Fannon's suffocated corpse locked in a basement vault.

When Gwendolyn Haas, the partner's adult daughter, enters the picture, the client number rises to three, including one missing and one murdered. But the worst is yet to come: Emil Haas's concern is that Fannon's been buying up depressed real estate on behalf of Charlotte Sing, the international fugitive Walker knows only too well as Madam Sing. Madam Sing is believed to have been executed in Asia for capital crimes without number, but instead may be engaged in rebuilding her fortune to relaunch her assault on civilization.

Enter Valentino, a mild-mannered UCLA film archivist. In the surreal world of Hollywood filmdom, truth is often stranger than celluloid fiction. When Valentino buys a decrepit movie palace and uncovers a skeleton in the secret Prohibition basement, he's not really surprised. But he's staggered by a second discovery: long-lost, priceless reels of film: Erich von Stroheim's infamous Greed.

The LAPD wants to take the reels as evidence, jeopardizing the precious old film. If Valentino wants to save his find, he has only one choice: solve the murder within 72 hours with the help of his mentor, the noted film scholar Broadhead, and Fanta, a feisty if slightly flaky young law student.

Between a budding romance with a beautiful forensics investigator and visions of Von Stroheim's ghost, Valentino's madcap race to save the flick is as fast and frenetic as a classic screwball comedy. A quirky cast of characters, smart dialogue and a touch of romance make Frames Estleman's most engaging and accessible novel to date.

Alone, the second wacky comedic murder romp for Hollywood film detective Valentino, from award-winning author Loren D. Estleman

Valentino wants to keep The Oracle, his beloved run-down movie palace, from being condemned before it even reopens, but murder keeps intruding into his otherwise quiet life. At a gala party held in memory of screen legend Greta Garbo, he's having fun until the host, a hotshot developer named Matthew Rankin, tells Valentino about a certain letter from Garbo to his late wife. She and Garbo had been...close.

Such a letter is of great interest to a film archivist like Valentino, but the the plot thickens when Rankin tells Val that his assistant, Akers, is using this letter to blackmail him. Val is appalled by the thought of blackmail...but that letter sounds juicier all the time. Returning to Rankin's mansion after the party, Val finds Rankin sitting at his desk with a pistol in his hand, looking at Akers's dead body on the floor.

Valentino's in a quandary. He'd love to see that letter, but he can't. He's gotten his girlfriend--who works for the police--in trouble, so his love life is, pardon the expression, shot to hell. Worse yet, the building inspector has kicked him out of his unfinished living space in the Oracle, so he takes his life in his hands and moves in with his eccentric mentor, the elderly, insomniac Professor Broadhead. No love, no sleep, no letter--life isn't fair