During a stormy festival at a mountain lake, a retired sergeant, on a painful quest to find a daughter he never knew he had, joins forces with two cattle ranchers (a retired Fed on assignment and a lovelorn musician/part-time deputy) as they find themselves tangling with an eclectic collection of characters: a murderous con man who will stop at nothing, a widowed young mother with no history, and a wealthy family with a shameful secret. A thrilling chain of events comes to a startling conclusion as the storm rages on above the Western plains. Lee Martin has written a contemporary Western for listeners of all ages who love mystery, suspense, heart-tugging revelations, unexpected love, and murder most foul. Based on a Dear John letter to a soldier who, twenty-five years later, finds a daughter he didn't know he had, In Mysterious Ways grabs hold of readers and refuses to let go until the very last moment.
"When Wes Montana's Arapaho mother is murdered the hired gun discovers his white father Ray Eastman who had abandoned them before Wes was born is still alive wealthy with family and may have ordered her death. Swearing vengeance on his own father Wes yet finds himself on his father's side in the middle of a range war fueled by Eastman's unfaithful wife. Wes likes his half-brother but is afraid of Rosalie a beautiful Irish orphan even as the war explodes in a fight to survive against all odds before the truth is known. Shadow on the Mesa follows the fight for survival as bad men outnumber the good and Wes Montana's thirst for vengeance against his own father takes an unexpected turn.
Ben Darringer is quick and deadly with a gun. That's why beautiful Elena Barker needs his help. Greedy cattlemen are after her ranch. As a hired gun in the midst of an all out range war, Ben is forced to take justice into his own hands and rely on the only law available to him - the law of the fast gun. The unscrupulous thieves will stop at nothing to get what they want, and some of them want more than rangeland, they want Elena. They must eliminate Ben if they wish to accomplish their greedy goals. So they hire Zevala, one of the fiercest and fastest gunmen in the territory...
Clay Darringer finds Katherine Turner dazed and wandering in the desert. Katherine is the sole survivor of an outlaw attack, and once the killers find out she's still alive her life won't be worth a plug-nickel. Darringer never seems able to stay out of other people's problems. By the time they reach town they have added a teenage boy to the entourage, and fought off some deadly Apache warriors. Even town isn't a safe refuge, for less than half an hour after setting foot on main street, Clay finds himself in the middle of a gunfight. His troubles are just beginning as Darringer finds himself on the trail of the Hunter....
Jess Darringer gets word that the woman he loved and left behind was murdered by five ruthless thugs. Jess is driven to avenge her death. His best lead to the identity of the killers is a receipts made out to a member of the Colby ranching clan. Jess and his younger brother Sam infiltrate the Colby Ranch by signing on as gun hands. They soon realize that riding the fence between crooks and good guys is more dangerous than they reckoned on, especially when it comes to a shooting showdown....
Deputy U.S. Marshal Hank Darringer finds the marshal, his mentor, hanging from a tree. He tracks the killers to Prospect, a bounty hunter's paradise, where he's as much a target as the wanted men.
Cass Darringer returns from hunting to find his partner murdered, three innocent men hanged, his mustangs stolen, and himself the target of vigilantes. He's saved by Texas Rafferty and her uncle, but ends up in a fiery showdown with ruthless killers.
“You have to know the rest of my story, the
part I can’t yet bring myself to say. A story
of a boy I knew a long time ago and a
brother I loved and then lost.”
Past and present collide in Lee Martin’s highly anticipated novel of a man, his brother, and the dark secret that both connects and divides them. Haunting and beautifully wrought, River of Heaven weaves a story of love and loss, confession and redemption, and the mystery buried with a boy named Dewey Finn.
On an April evening in 1955, Dewey died on the railroad tracks outside Mt. Gilead, Illinois, and the mystery of his death still confounds the people of this small town.
River of Heaven begins some fifty years later and centers on the story of Dewey’s boyhood friend Sam Brady, whose solitary adult life is much formed by what really went on in the days leading up to that evening at the tracks. It’s a story he’d do anything to keep from telling, but when his brother, Cal, returns to Mt. Gilead after decades of self-exile, it threatens to come to the surface.
A Pulitzer Prize finalist for The Bright Forever, Lee Martin masterfully conveys, with a voice that is at once distinct and lyrical, one man’s struggle to come to terms with the outcome of his life. Powerful and captivating, River of Heaven is about the high cost of living a lie, the chains that bind us to our past, and the obligations we have to those we love.
Bronco Wade and old Curly hightail it out of Texas when blamed for the deaths of three of rancher Sladek\'s sons. Fifteen years later, Bronco and Curly discover a trail herd they are following belongs to the deadly Sladeks.
Eli Cole has been on a trail of vengeance for ten years, ever since his parents and his bride were murdered by the Cassidy gang. One by one he has tracked down his enemies and he has come to be known as The Hunter, the fastest, most fearless gun in the West.
On an evening like any other, nine-year-old Katie Mackey, daughter of the most affluent family in a small town on the plains of Indiana, sets out on her bicycle to return some library books. This simple act is at the heart of The Bright Forever, a suspenseful, deeply affecting novel about the choices people make that change their lives forever. Keeping fact, speculation, and contradiction playing off one another as the details unfold, author Lee Martin creates a fast-paced story that is as gripping as it is richly human. His beautiful, clear-eyed prose builds to an extremely nuanced portrayal of the complicated give and take among people struggling to maintain their humanity in the shadow of a loss. Reminiscent of books such as The Little Friend and The Lovely Bones, but most memorable for its own perceptions and power, The Bright Forever is a compelling and emotional tale about the human need to know even the hardest truth. From the Hardcover edition.
