No one more vividly captures the rugged majesty and enduring spirit of the American West than Louis L'Amour. Collected for the very first time are seven unabridged frontier tales from a legendary master of the genre. Volume One celebrates this remarkable voice in American fiction with a captivating blend of some of his best-loved work.

The marshal's name was Borden Chantry. Young, lean, rugged, he's buried a few men in this two-bit cow town - every single one killed in a fair fight. Then, one dark, grim day a mysterious gunman shot a man in cold blood. Five grisly murders later, Chantey was faced with the roughest assignment of his life - find that savage, trigger-happy hard case before he blasts apart every man in town...one by bloody one.

A woman ahead of her time, Mary Breydon knew how to get things done. Raised on a Virginia plantation, she learned how to care for livestock, respect her workers, and keep good books. But after her husband is killed, Mary must provide for her young daughter by running a stage coach station on the Cherokee Trail. With the help of an Irish maid and a mysterious stranger, Mary faces challenges that even the men eagerly anticipating her failure would have a difficult time overcoming.

In a remote corner of Utah lies the secret outlaw kingdom of Ben Curry. For 15 years Curry has ruled supreme, as his men have pulled jobs from Canada to Mexico. But the king is getting old...he wants to turn his legacy over to someone younger, tougher. Mike Bastian is Ben's adopted son, a young man who can handle a knife, a gun, his fists, but a man who's never broken the law. Now, as treachery explodes among Ben's riders, and two honest lawmen - Tyrel Sackett and Borden Chantry - begin to zero in on the gang, Mike must choose....

In the midst of a lively country dance, gunshots ring out at the stagecoach station and Texas Ranger Chick Bowdrie finds the station's master sprawled in a pool of his own blood. Twelve thousand dollars are missing. And an innocent man has been murdered. And it's up to Chick to bring the killer to justice. With the unerring instincts that make him one of the best trackers in the Texas Rangers, Chick locates the killer's camp - and his lifeless body, courtesy of a double-crossing accomplice.

More than any writer before or since, Louis L'Amour brought the American West to life. His action-packed stories deal with eternal themes: honor, deceit, passion, betrayal, loyalty, courage, love. His settings are historically accurate, his prose riveting, and his characters colorful: good guys, bad guys, toughs, roughs, sidekicks, and saints.

His father killed by the British and his home burned, young Tatton Chantry left Ireland to make his fortune and regain the land that was rightfully his. Schooled along the way in the use of arms, Chantry arrives in London a wiser and far more dangerous man. He invests in trading ventures, but on a voyage to the New World his party is attacked by Indians and he is marooned in the untamed wilderness of the Carolina coast. It is in this darkest time, when everything seems lost, that Chantry encounters a remarkable opportunity....

When Gaylord Riley walked away from the Coburn gang, he had money and a dream. He worked hard and built a cabin, gathered a herd of cattle, and fell in love with Marie Shattuck. But when he is confronted with false accusations of rustling and murder, Riley is forced to defend his new law-abiding way of life. Outnumbered and facing a lynching party, Riley is surprised when his old friends return to lend him a hand. But how can they help him and keep themselves out of jail?

Cattleman Jim Gatlin isn't the kind of man who goes looking for a fight. But he never turns away when one comes looking for him. And that's just what happens when he finds himself mistaken for another man - a man who has some very dangerous enemies. Like it or not, Gatlin is a dead ringer for the only man in town who stands between the ruthless Wing Carey and the ownership of the XY Ranch. Framed for murder, Gatlin suddenly finds himself the town's most wanted man. Now he must clear his name and help a pretty young woman by putting his own bid on the XY.

After discovering six gold Roman coins buried in the mud of the Devil's Dyke, Barnabas Sackett enthusiastically invests in goods that he will offer for trade in America. But Sackett has a powerful enemy: Rupert Genester, nephew of an earl, wants him dead. A battlefield promise made to Sackett’s father threatens Genester’s inheritance. So on the eve of his departure for America, Sackett is attacked and thrown into the hold of a pirate ship.

He was a tough enforcer for a New York gang. But when young Tom Shanaghy made one too many enemies, he skipped town on a fast-moving freight. He landed in a small Kansas town that had big dreams, no name, and the need for an honest lawman. Tom figured that a knuckle-and-skull man from Five Points would be perfect for the job. He didn't know that a high-stakes cattle drive was headed his way and that leading it was a vindictive rancher bent on settling an old score.

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. The rough trails are his home, from the Big Thicket to the Pecos to the border. He's dried by the desert sun and wind, scarred and toughened by uncounted gun battles, and when you look into his black eyes, it's like looking down the barrels of two .44s with their hammers drawn back. He rides in the name of justice, but he lives by his own law–Bowdrie's Law.

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.

Tap Duvarney lost his innocence in the War Between the States and then put his skills to the test as a soldier in the frontier army. Now, leaving behind a devoted fiancée, he is trying to make his fortune on the Texas coast, working a ranch as the partner of his old friend Tom Kittery - and finding himself in the middle of a feud between Kittery and the neighboring Munson family.

It was the only water for miles in a vast, sun-blasted desert where water meant survival. So Logan Cates naturally headed for Papago Wells. But he wasn't the only one. Fleeing the fierce Churupati and his Apache warriors, other travelers had come there, too. And when the Apaches found them, they began a siege as relentless and unforgiving as the barren land - and just as inescapable.

Two little girls stand with their heads bowed in my living room. I’m told they’re my granddaughters. Daisy is nine, and Alice seven. Daisy is the spitting image of her mother. This is the first time I’ve met them since my daughter and I fell out after she married that waste of space, Vince. They’ve come to live with me because their mother — my daughter — was murdered. In her own home while they slept close by. I think Vince killed her. But the police can’t prove it. I’ve always known he was no good. He treated my daughter like dirt. I said he’d cheat on her — but she wouldn’t listen.

Who is Audrey Hoedemaker? It's a question her sister Maureen has heard more times than she can count, and she doesn't know what the short answer would be. Little sister, troubled teen, backpacker, musical theatre coach, con artist, childcare worker. Murderer. A tragic, traumatic childhood casts a long shadow on the Hoedemaker sisters. Maureen has worked hard to move beyond the violence of the past and build a good, honest life for herself. Audrey, however, just can't seem to do the same, careening from one state of chaos to another.

Lucas knows the perfect night entails just three things: video games, wine, and pad thai. Peanuts are a must! Other people? Not so much. Why complicate things when he’s happy alone? Then one day the apartment board, a vexing trio of authority, rings his doorbell. And Lucas’s solitude takes a startling hike. They demand to see his frying pan. Someone left one next to the recycling room overnight, and instead of removing the errant object, as Lucas suggests, they insist on finding the guilty party. But their plan backfires. Colossally.

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.

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.