THIS JUST IN . . .

I am pleased to announce my newest Gritty Press e-book:

Two for the Trail: A Pair of Gritty Western Short Stories

Jen designed a cover that I think is some of her best work, and I couldn’t be more pleased. This twosome — available right now on the Kindle and Nook (and soon on Kobo and iBooks) — includes the following stories:

Half a Pig
(2010 Spur Award Finalist, Best Western Short Fiction Story, Western Writers of America)
Blood is thick. Rope is thicker…. Rancher Eamon Riggs is a hard man disinclined to tolerate theft—no matter the thief, no matter the reason.

Snows of Montana
On his way north, Texas cowboy “Pal” Palchik stops at a small farm for a hot meal. Then he meets the farmer’s daughter…. Pal should have kept on riding.

PLUS: This e-book includes an excerpt from Roamer, Book 1: Wrong Town!

Look for Two for the Trail everywhere fine ebooks are sold (Amazon, B&N). Stay tuned for more soon from Gritty Press! And remember … Keep it Gritty.™

Well sir, it could be the chili speakin’ … or it could be the audiobook version of my recent novel, Tucker’s Reckoning. (Let’s assume for the moment that it’s the latter…. )

This unabridged version on seven CDs, by Recorded Books, lasts for 8.5 hours! I had no idea I was so windy (and no, I’m still not talkin’ about chili). It’s narrated by the actor Mark Zeisler, and from the sound of it, he did a dandy job.

I believe it’ll be for sale at the usual online outlets before too long (I’m told digital and cassette versions are coming soon, too.) I expect this package is primarily intended for sale to libraries, which still do a brisk trade in audiobooks. At any rate, I’m pleased as punch to have this great new version of the book available.

Now, back to the chili….

Haunted Old West

My recent book, Haunted Old West, has earned a dandy review in the February, 2013, issue of Western Writers of America’s magazine, Roundup. Here’s what reviewer, Lynn D. Bueling, had to say about the book:

A sleepless night spent in a haunted Irish hotel fascinated Matthew P. Mayo enough to set him on the trail identifying similar hair-raising sites in the Old West. He includes stories that could unsettle spook-prone readers or interest thrill-seeking travelers enough so they’d visit and experience the phenomena themselves.

The specter of a murdered miner with a hatchet buried in his forehead wanders about his claim, music plays in an abandoned saloon and a rocking chair persists in relocating itself to a window where a woman always sat. Mayo features 28 stories set in brothels, ghost towns, battlefields, mansions and much more to acquaint readers with the world of the paranormal in the Old West.

—Lynn D. Bueling, Roundup Magazine

Late last year (doesn’t that sound odd?), I received my December copy of Roundup Magazine, the publication of Western Writers of America. In it, writer Rod Miller favorably reviews my book Sourdoughs, Claim Jumpers, and Dry Gulchers:

Matthew Mayo offers up 50 bite-size chunks of dramatized history in this enjoyable read. While based on actual incidents, the author “used poetic license by adding dialogue and supporting characters” when necessary. He used his license well and the stories race along, conveying the excitement of the hunt for riches.

Mayo’s tales cover the mining frontier from the furnace of the Mojave to the icebox of the Yukon, and misfortunes and misadventures ranging from Indian attacks to avalanches, cave-ins to cannibalism. You’ll meet famous figures such as Soapy Smith and Nellie Cashman, as well as obscure and unfamiliar folks, all of whim played roles in mining in North America.

Coronado’s 1541 search for the Seven Cities of Cibola breaks a chronological trail that carries the reader to Fairbanks, Alaska, in 1905. The text is illustrated with more than two dozen paintings and photographs to complement the narrative. While not always illustrating the stories they accompany, the images do add atmosphere while showing the ins and outs of prospecting and mining.

—Rod Miller, Roundup Magazine

MURDER IN DOGLEG CITY, to be precise…. Just released (in ebook and paperback), it’s Book 3 in the WOLF CREEK series of multi-author novels by the members of Western Fictioneers.

A pile of Western authors came up with characters to populate the fictional town and write chapters based on an outline by series’ editor, WF President Troy D. Smith, who then added his own magic, smoothed and shaped, and pulled it all together. The resulting novels–three so far with several more in the works–are written under the collective pseudonym of “Ford Fargo.”

Appearing as Ford Fargo in this installment,  MURDER IN DOGLEG CITY: L.J. Washburn, Phil Dunlap, Chuck Tyrell, Jerry Guin, Troy D. Smith, and Matthew P. Mayo.

My character, one-armed Rupe Tingley, swamper and town drunk, makes his wobbly self known throughout the book, and I was able to flesh him out more fully in chapter five. Maybe we’ll see more of Rupe weaving on down the road, but only if he survives … MURDER IN DOGLEG CITY!

About WOLF CREEK, BOOK 3: MURDER IN DOGLEG CITY:
Dogleg City is what folks in Wolf Creek call the seedy part of town. Life is cheap there, and death is common. At first this murder seemed like any other — but the more Marshal Sam Gardner and his deputies learn about it, the more it seems this death will blow Wolf Creek wide open.…

About the author: Beneath the mask, Ford Fargo is not one but a posse of America’s leading western authors who have pooled their talents to create a series of rip-snortin’, old fashioned sagebrush sagas. Saddle up. Read ’em Cowboy! These are the legends of Wolf Creek.

HOT LEAD, COLD HEART: One Last Mission for Mason the Mankiller. It’s the new GRITTY PRESS version in ebook and paperback formats of my 2008 novel. Never before released in the US, HOT LEAD, COLD HEART started out as a hardcover for the Black Horse Western line by London, UK, publisher Robert Hale. Then it came out the next year as a large-print softcover.

The new GRITTY PRESS version is revised and expanded, reformatted in and out, and sports amazing cover art! (It also includes a sample chapter of the next book in the Roamer series: THE GREENHORN GAMBLE).

But back to HOT LEAD, COLD HEART…. Who’s this Mason the Mankiller fella, and why’s he so riled up?

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.

Pick your poison: Kindle, NOOK, Kobo, or paperback, then sink spur, and hang on!

My latest, TUCKER’S RECKONING, is up for sale today. It’s a novel I wrote for the Ralph Compton line and I’m pleased with how it turned out. It was also chosen by the publisher as the first-ever hardcover for the Compton line. Here’s what they have to say in the press about it:

TUCKER’S RECKONING
(a Ralph Compton Western) by Matthew P. Mayo.
New American Library (NAL); Hardcover; $19.95.

The first hardcover in the USA Today bestselling series. This book, written by Matthew P. Mayo (who was a 2010 finalist for the Western Writers of America’s Spur Award for Short Fiction) continues with the same high standards and compelling plots that Ralph himself wrote.

The story:
Since losing his wife and daughter, Samuel Tucker has wandered, drunk and bereft of a reason to go on. Now, in Oregon’s Rogue River region, far from his native Texas, 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….

Click here for your own dandy copy of TUCKER’S RECKONING!

On his blog, The Outlaw trail, friend and fellow writer, Charles Whipple (aka Chuck Tyrell), is going through the chilling new anthology, SIX-GUNS AND SLAY BELLS: A CREEPY COWBOY CHRISTMAS!, story by spooky story….

Today he mentions my contribution, “O Unholy Night,” which features my two recurrent characters, Roamer and Maple Jack. Who are they and what happens to them in that raging, Christmas-eve blizzard?

Reach out with your trembling hand and pick up a copy … if you dare!

To get yer blood pumpin’ and yer eyes buggin’, here’s an excerpt from my new non-fiction book, HAUNTED OLD WEST: Phantom Cowboys, Spirit-Filled Saloons, Mystical Mine Camps, and Spectral Indians!

Excerpt from Chapter 27:

Wolf Girl of Devil’s River

Devil’s River, Del Rio, Texas

In the early 1800s, along the Devil’s River in Texas, a trapper’s wife goes into labor. The trapper rides to a Mexican village for help, but dies on the way. The villagers find his wife, also dead, but of the baby, there is no sign, though inside and out of the cabin are the tracks of wolves. Over the ensuing years, people see a wolf pack with an oddly hunched member. She is captured once and many witness her before she escapes. To this day, she is seen, surveying strangers from across the river, misshapen and nursing wolf pups, howling and loping the banks of the river.

 

Skull-cracking thunder drowned out all sound, including the approaching howl of wolves. The night was near-black, save for the slashes of harsher-than-noonday brilliance as lightning stitched through the raw, clacking branches of the cottonwoods. John Dent kept the river to his left, hugging it, and urged the horse forward, concentrating on getting to the village for help. His poor Mollie . . . he knew now he never should have brought her out to this wild place, especially so close to giving birth. And now she was having trouble.

She was a tall, thin woman, who’d half-jokingly told him she did not have the hips that would make her good at birthing children. He almost smiled at the thought of her, but no, this was no time to fall to musing. She was back at their little trapper’s cabin, giving birth to their firstborn, and he had to make all haste to get help for her. He knew only how to take life, how to skin a carcass, strip a wolf’s hide from its meat and bone—not how to bring a life into this world.

Without warning his horse balked, great clouds of breath pluming from its snout and its eyes rolling white. It fought him hard, jerking side to side, low gargling whines of fear boiling up from deep in its chest. He’d only ever seen the beast this bothered once, but it had been wolves then, a pack of them closing in one night more than two months before. But it couldn’t be wolves out on a night such as this, vicious wind and rain lashing down, the river filling higher with each second.

And then John Dent, too, felt instant, trembling fear deep in his core. It was the earthy wet-hair stink of meat-eating animal, close and drawing closer, its breath seeming to cloud in his face. His horse whinnied beyond a scream and lost its footing. Dent felt its powerful muscles work frantically to regain solid footing, but there was none to be had, and within seconds, despite his slashing of the reins and jamming the beast hard in the gut, the horse rolled down the bank of the storm-swollen Devil’s River.

Lightning sliced the blue-black night, sizzling the wind-driven rain, and time seemed to slow as John Dent slammed down the muddy riverbank. Just before the horse rolled over him, driving him into the river, he saw in the lightning’s flash, far above him on the bank, the stark outline of wolves in a ragged line, staring down at him, jumping back and forth over one another, snarling, baying, angry that they had lost such a rich opportunity to the cruelties of weather.

Just before he died, Dent felt himself being dragged along by the roiling river. And though the flow’s voice was in fine, full form that night, he swore he heard above it the howl of wolves, as if mocking him, laughing at him. Then they were gone, and John Dent’s horse-battered body spun downstream.

 * * *

“There is the gringo trapper’s cabin. Poor man, he and his horse must have fallen in the river, perhaps in the storm days ago. They were both found drowned.”

“But he was married, no? We shall have to tell his wife.”

“That’s why we are here. But let me talk, eh? You are, how shall I say it . . . not so good with the ladies.”

Mario scowled. Just because he was still unmarried did not mean he would always be so. But he said nothing, just nodded. As they drew closer to the cabin, they realized something was wrong. The chimney sat silent, no smoke trailing from it, then they saw the door was open, swung inward. The two men exchanged looks of concern. For the fall of the year, this would never do. Perhaps the woman was cleaning the place?

“Jorge?”

“Quiet, Mario. Something is wrong.” He nodded at the muddied earth. The clearing surrounding the cabin was pocked with many paw prints.

“Wolves.”

They entered the open door of the cabin and their hands cupped their mouths, then covered their noses, and they turned away. Back outside, both men began crossing themselves. “Madre Dios,” muttered Mario.

For some minutes, neither of them said anything else, then Jorge said, “We have to bury her.”

“Si. But I was told she was with child.”

They both looked back in the dim, chilled interior, at the muddy paw prints leading in and out of the cabin. “Not anymore.”

Was the baby raised by wolves? Buy the book and find out! Mwahahahaha!

Yes, folks! It’s HAUNTED OLD WEST! From romance and robberies to cowboys and Indians, the Old West is filled with phenomenal happenings, curious mysteries, and ghastly ghosts that are sure to send a chill down any spine. Haunted Old West is the petrifyingly perfect collection for any campfire gathering. Grab a copy … if you dare!

(Wolf photo courtesy National Park Service/Ken Conger)