Novels

HOT LEAD, COLD HEART

New revised editions: Kindle, NOOK, Kobo, softcover, Gritty Press, 222 pages, October 2012
Softcover, FA Thorpe/Ulverscroft, November, 2009
Hardcover, Robert Hale Ltd., October, 2008

 

His Honor Newland Pontiff III, late of Exeter Territorial Prison, now presides over a vast tract of land with the ambitious town of Cayuse Falls at its center‚ town he’s confident he can transform into the ‘Washington of the West,’ given enough time. But a demon from his past haunts the horizon, and time is running short.

Mason the Mankiller, vigilante hero to the downtrodden, has come out of retirement to settle one last score‚ the only one that ever mattered‚ with a man who long ago forgot he’d wronged the famous ‘killer of killers’. A tonic peddler, vengeful sisters, and a reluctant lawman all dog Mason’s trail. But he vows that nothing will stop him from seeing this last mission through to its end‚ an end he knows he won’t survive.

(Black Horse or Linford Editions)

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WINTERS’ WAR

New revised editions: Kindle, Nook, Kobo, and softcover, Gritty Press, 220 pages, July 2012
Available from Amazon: USA | United Kingdom | France | Germany | Italy | Spain | Japan
Softcover, FA Thorpe/Ulverscroft, 2008
Hardcover, Robert Hale Ltd., 2007

For eight years the Winters family has worked hard to live down the nightmare of a bloody range war. Theirs is now a promising ranch on hard-won land in Wyoming’s rugged Rockies. But on the eve of the season’s first snowstorm a stranger slips in, ripping open old wounds, and devolving their lives into a brutal struggle for survival. Niall Winters returns from selling his fall herd to find his ranch a burned ruin, his Uncle Drift dead, his wife missing, and the blizzard covering any clues with a whole lot of snow. He heads into the raging maw of the storm determined to confront this demon from his past and salvage the remains of their shattered lives–or die trying. But he has no idea of the horrors that await him.

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TUCKER’S RECKONING
(A Ralph Compton Western by Matthew P. Mayo)

Hardcover, New American Library (NAL)
Release date: November 6, 2012
304 pages
Available from: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Indiebound, Powell’s

WITNESS TO AN EXECUTION

Ever since he lost his wife and daughter, Samuel Tucker has wandered, drunk and bereft of a reason to go on. Now, far from his native Texas in Oregon’s Rogue River region, Tucker secretly watches as two men gun down a third. After they leave, he takes the dead man’s pistol and makes it to the next town.

There, he learns the identity of the murdered man: Payton Farraday, a well-liked local rancher—and the second Farraday shot to death within the last two years. He also becomes a suspect in the shooting. But Emma Farraday, the victim’s niece, believes in his innocence—and the two must reveal the machinations of some wealthy and powerful men to prove it. If they don’t, Emma could lose the ranch and Tucker could lose his life—just when he’s found a new reason to live…

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WRONG TOWN (ROAMER, Book 1)
One man’s quest to lose himself in the West

New revised editions: Kindle, Nook, Kobo, and softcover, Gritty Press, 184 pages, March 2012
Available from Amazon: USA | United Kingdom | France | Germany | Italy | Spain | Japan
Softcover, FA Thorpe/Ulverscroft, 2009
Hardcover, Robert Hale Ltd., 2008

First in the gritty, all-action Western series by Spur Award-nominated author Matthew P. Mayo, featuring Roamer, loner with a face everyone fears.

Roamer is having a bad day–he is savaged by a grizzly, robbed by bandits, and attacked by wolves. So by the time he makes it to the little Rocky Mountain town of Tall Pine all he wants is a cup of coffee, a hot meal, and a soft bed. The sheriff jails him for murder instead.Layers of lies and a string of killings blacken the very soul of Tall Pine as a seething mob marks Roamer’s homely face as guilty and seeks its twisted justice with his blood. Can he stop the townsfolk from destroying themselves or will they kill him first? It’s a brutal race against time for Roamer as the savage mob rips apart its little town, leaving innocent people dead and the wrong people in charge.

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DEAD MAN’S RANCH
(A Ralph Compton Western by Matthew P. Mayo)

Mass market paperback, Signet, March 6, 2012
304 pages
Available from: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Indiebound | Powell’s

Brian Middleton was sent back East as a child, raised in a life of privilege. But now he’s returned to claim the land his late father left him—and learns the hard way that if you want to keep something in the wild West, you have to fight for it. With scheming local lowlifes and a drifting, murderous con-man after the Dancing M ranch, Middleton has no choice but to make a stand, though it may well cost him everything.

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