Overrun by hard-bitten miners, gamblers, and the kind of no-account drifters that follow the gold camps, Basin City is a place where no respectable citizen feels safe. That's why three of the town's foremost businessmen have gone and hired a new marshal. Tomorrow he'll be in charge of protecting a stagecoach carrying over a quarter million dollars in gold as it moves out of the Basin City depot. Tonight he'll be defending his life.

Cattle rancher Ben Kerr wants Jim and Jack Casady's prime farmland real bad. He's offered them good money, but they won't sell. When the Casady brothers find Kerr's cattle grazing on their land, surrounded by broken fences, anger rises up like bile in Jack Casady's gut, and tempers flare.

When Mac Marcy got it into his head to run his own cattle ranch, he spent five long years working for Ben Tanner at the Bar 7 to save up enough money to do just that. His dream finally realized, Mac stakes his claim on a deserted ranch in a nearby valley, and rides over to say hello to his new neighbors at the Flying K. Thing is, Mac finds more than he bargained for in the owner's pretty daughter, Sally Kenyon, who seems eager to help him get started with his own place. What Mac hadn't counted on, though, was the jealous foreman at the Flying K, Vin Ricker, who had plans of his own where Sally and the Flying K were concerned.

It was a name that caused the most hardened gunmen to break out in a cold sweat: Texas Ranger Chick Bowdrie. Pursuing the most wanted men in the Southwest, he knew all too well the dusty trails, the bitter cattle feuds, the desperate killers, and the quiet, weather-beaten towns that could explode into mayhem with the wrong word. He had sworn to carry out the law, but there were times when he had to apply justice with his fists and his guns.

"The Strong Shall Live": When they burned his home, he rebuilt it. When they shot at him, he shot back. But now the man they call Cavagan is in the worst bind of his life. "Keep Travelin', Rider": After an absence of several years, Tack Gentry heads home to his Uncle John's G-Bar Ranch. But when he arrives, the entire town has changed. What's more, strangers have taken over the G-Bar. "Strawhouse Trail": On a seldom-used smugglers' trail between Mexico and Austin, a man lies dying. Texas Ranger Chick Bowdrie takes the stranger's body to Valverde, the nearest town.

The open West was a land where wanderers could find themselves a home--a home to fight for, to be changed by, sometimes to die for. From a has-been boxer to a ranch hand taking on his bosses' troubles, the characters in these classic Louis L'Amour short stories are all "riding for the brand" - staying loyal to what matters.

"There's Always a Trail": When a stranger named Handy offered to track down Cass Bailey's stolen money for a stake in the CB range, Bailey has nothing more to lose. "Home in the Valley": Steve Mehan had done the impossible when he drove a herd of cattle from the Nevada range to California in the dead of winter. But Mehan had little time to rest before tragedy struck. "Monument Rock": It had been many years since Lona Markham's father sent her from the rigors of ranch life to a convent school. Now she's returned to a wary, careworn man who hardly seems like the father she remembers.

Johnny Buck is a young cowboy, working for the Bar W. In the process of roping an old stob-horned steer, Buck is thrown from his horse - and into a hidden cleft where he encounters the mystery of a murdered man and a bag of ore that just might be gold.

When Jim Locklin pays his brother, George, a visit, he finds George missing, his horse ranch taken over by his brother's estranged wife, and a shifty gambler named Chance Varrow, who seems to have become a permanent visitor.

Life on an Ohio farm couldn't hold young Bill Carey. He wanted the adventure he knew waited in the territories to the west. He'd drifted into the outlaw life and found himself shot up, a lawman on his trail, holed up on a small farm near the lair of Tabat Ryerson. Ryerson, the man who'd introduced him to cattle rustling and bank robbery, was a cold-blooded killer, the man who'd turned the sweet young woman who'd saved Carey's life into an unwilling accomplice.

"Rain on a Mountain Fork": Lawman, manhunter, peacemaker - it takes a hard breed of man to survive as a Texas Ranger, but Chick Bowdrie stands head and shoulders above the rest. "A Ranger Rides to Town": Texas Ranger Chick Bowdrie is a good man to have on your side and a bad man to have on your trail. When an anonymous note alerts him to an impending bank robbery, he rides into a blazing gun battle. "Down Sonora Way": Chick Bowdrie and Tensleep Mooney, a tough, wily, Wyoming cowhand, are locked in a stalemate with nothing between them but 60 yards and a Winchester.

Cattlemen ride alone across the open range under the deadly aim of roving desperadoes.... Gamblers stake their fortunes and their lives on a deck of cards.... Strong-willed señoritas seek independence through an enticing combination of beauty, audacity, and spirit.... Lawmen and outlaws walk the same dusty streets and speak a common language: Colt, Winchester, Smith & Wesson.

When Miguel Merrano first came to Mirror Valley, the land was green and lush...and off limits to Mexicans. Ranchers such as Tom Drake and Joe Stangle tried to drive Merrano out, to fence him out; and when he warned them that greed and overgrazing would ruin their land, they refused to listen.

Tough and vicious, the Fred Henry Gang had been robbing banks all along the stage route from Santa Fe to Tularosa. It was only a matter of time before they hit the sleepy town of Sentinel, and Marshal Fitz Moore knew that day had come.

"Killer from the Pecos": Texas Ranger Chick Bowdrie rides into the wild town of Almagre trailing a Pecos bank robber who has left two men dead. "Lit a Shuck for Texas": Johnny Buck is a young Texas cowboy working for the Bar W. In the process of roping an old stob-horned steer, Buck is thrown from his horse into a cleft where he encounters the mystery of a murdered man and a bag of ore that just might be gold. "Turkeyfeather Riders": Jim Sandifer had run Grey Bowen's ranch for years in his absence. When Bowen reappears with his newly betrothed, Rose Martin, and her grown son, Lee, Sandifer is glad to see his boss.

When mystery author D. B. Ziegler is late delivering her book, Abi Schore steps in to help. Surely she can give her favorite author moral support over the holiday break and get the manuscript to her boss at Tea & Sympathy Publishing in time for the new year. When Abi shows up on Ms. Ziegler’s doorstep bearing holiday treats, she’s met by the author’s handsome grandson Dov, who reveals a startling plot twist. His grandmother isn’t able to finish the book and Dov promised he’d complete it so fans won’t be disappointed—a task that’s harder than he ever imagined.

It’s 1984, and life has changed beyond recognition. Airstrip One, formerly known as Great Britain, is a place where Big Brother is always watching, and nobody can hide. Except, perhaps, for Winston Smith. Whilst working at the Ministry of Truth, rewriting history, he secretly dreams of freedom. And in a world where love and sex are forbidden, where it’s hard to distinguish between friend and foe, he meets Julia and O’Brien and vows to rebel.

When Heather McKinley dreamed of becoming a doctor, she imagined curing sick kids and sporting pink stethoscopes. She never anticipated the sleepless nights, grueling exams, and endless labs. And she certainly never knew that her medical school earned the nickname Dead Med thanks to the tragic history of students overdosing on illegal drugs. But Heather would never consider doing anything like that. That is, until her longtime boyfriend dumps her, she finds herself failing anatomy, and her world starts to crumble.

Tilly Farriday isn’t feeling very jolly this season. Recently divorced and broke, she’s squatting in one of her rental agency’s properties until her new home is ready. The sprinkles on top of the burnt Christmas cookie that is her life? The new owner shows up early, forcing Tilly to hide in the attic to save her job…and what remains of her dignity.

The 13 chapters of The Art of War, each devoted to one aspect of warfare, were compiled by the high-ranking Chinese military general, strategist, and philosopher Sun-Tzu. In spite of its battlefield specificity, The Art of War has found new life in the modern age, with leaders in fields as wide and far-reaching as world politics, human psychology, and corporate strategy finding valuable insight in its timeworn words.

Oakland-bred LaVeesha “Vee” Gilliam (Coco Jones) is a determined single mother of an autistic son and a gifted aspiring coder. When Vee loses her job as a food-services worker at the onsite restaurant at Grapengine, a large Silicon Valley tech company, she’s unable to pay for her son’s much-needed specialized education. By a twist of fate, mistaken identity, and her tech skills, Vee meets Troy Wilson (Keith Powers), the company’s wealthy founder and CEO and a wunderkind in the tech industry, who believes that Vee is a college-educated techie who works at his company.

As the days grow shorter and the temperature drops, Halloween approaches. Come, brave listener, pull up a chair, and spend some time with master storyteller Stephen Fry as he tells us some of his favourite ghost stories of all time, in truly terrifying spatial audio. From the headless horseman of Sleepy Hollow to the tortured spirits of M.R. James, from Edgar Allan Poe’s terrifying tale of a doppelganger to Charlotte Riddell’s Open Door that should definitely stay shut, join Stephen as he tells you some truly terrifying tales.

Guy Montag is a fireman. In his world, where television rules and literature is on the brink of extinction, firemen start fires rather than put them out. His job is to destroy the most illegal of commodities, the printed book, along with the houses in which they are hidden. Montag never questions the destruction and ruin his actions produce, returning each day to his bland life and wife, Mildred, who spends all day with her television "family."

As Charly struggles to recover from her brain injury, she begins to realize that the events of that fateful night are trapped in the damaged right side of her brain. Now, she must put the jigsaw pieces together to discover the identity of the man who tried to kill her...before he finishes the job he started.

Johnnie Rico never really intended to join up—and definitely not the infantry. But now that he’s in the thick of it, trying to get through combat training harder than anything he could have imagined, he knows everyone in his unit is one bad move away from buying the farm in the interstellar war the Terran Federation is waging against the Arachnids. Because everyone in the Mobile Infantry fights. And if the training doesn’t kill you, the Bugs are more than ready to finish the job.