Showing results by narrator "Maynard Villers" in All Categories

Astronauts Jim Parker and Michael Murphy, aboard the space shuttle Charger II, were wrapping up a routine mission. Just prior to re-entry, they encountered a mysterious cloud bank in space and were never heard from again. Two years later, a metal box was unearthed at a construction site in St. Louis. In it was a previously unknown, yet apparently authentic, journal of the historic Lewis and Clark expedition: written by astronaut Jim Parker. Did Parker and Murphy alter history, or save it?

When the Civil War ended, Confederate Captain Clete Slater was looking forward to going home to his family and enjoying a peaceful life on his family's plantation in Texas. He was greeted by the Union Army and Carpetbaggers taking over everything. When he resisted and fought for his home, they framed him and declared him an outlaw, forcing him to hit the trail. Now he has a crooked federal marshal with an itchy trigger finger dogging his trail.

Mando Killion's world was shattered by Santa Anna's brutal invasion of Texas. Scion of a wealthy ranching dynasty, he saw his father die at the Alamo, his mother and brothers murdered, and his beautiful sister taken hostage by a debauched Mexican General. Mando came of age during the most violent days of Texas history, as a hearty band of patriots led by Sam Houston fought a bloody revolution for freedom from tyranny.

Haunted by the blood and bitterness of the Civil War, Houston Ballou escaped from Tennessee on the proud stallion High Fire, followed by his brother, Ruff; his sister, Dixie; and the last four mares from the Ballou farm, one of them heavy with foal. Threatened with extreme danger from either army, they head west to start a new life. Adding to their peril are deserters that stalk the roads. These men would kill for a few coins, more so for valuable horseflesh.

Creed was willing to risk his life by going home to the girl and the land he loved. Texada and Texas. Both represented his future and as long as he could breathe he would determine his own destiny. But the road home lay through Victoria County, a place that many considered to be lawless and wild even before the War. He knew he was inviting trouble, but he was in a hurry. Riding into the town of Victoria, Creed finds himself caught in a standoff between the angry townsfolk and the company of Union soldiers sent to occupy the town.

Which horse is fastest, Wildfire or Sage King? No one in the Colorado River Valley knew, until a raging range fire trapped both horses and riders into a race against death.

Hallettsville, Texas was home to ex-Confederate officer Slate Creed. But after taking an oath for the Union he discovered Yankees had taken over his plantation, named him an outlaw when he resisted, and framed him for murder... Now with a signed confession in his hand naming the real murderer, Creed can finally clear his name. With his nephew and sister-in-law, he's headed for Texas. But his trail is fraught with danger...and it won't do Creed much good to gain his reputation if he loses his life in the process.

Ex-Confederate officer Slate Creed is still intent on taking back his land from Yankee carpetbaggers and clearing his name. But a noose still hangs over Slate Creed's head for a crime he didn't commit. Now there's only one hope to clear his name: saving the neck of the man who framed him. The whole town wants Dick Barth dead, except for Creed, he needs him breathing - and confessing. But freedom for both men makes trouble a sure bet - especially when the wager is paid in blood.

The Union nearly killed him in the Civil War. Then the bluecoats and carpetbaggers stole his Texas plantation and turned what was left of his family against him. His Texas home-town became an armed camp, full of corrupt, greedy Yankees anxious to wipe out any veteran that showed up in tattered Confederate gray. Any other man would have just drifted on, but not Confederate Captain Clete Slater.

J. Harrison Bing after receiving no word from his daughter in nearly a year, went to her home in L.A. only to find she had sold the home and left without a trace. He hired a Los Angeles P. I. named William Carter to track her down and after calling from Vegas, he also disappeared. Now it is Shell Scott's turn. Assuming a simple case of finding a missing person, Shell finds out the hard way that he has bitten into an elephant.

Shell Scott's mental contemplation was rudely interrupted when his office door was suddenly opened and an unpleasant little man walked in with a .45 caliber automatic pointed right at Shell's midsection. Unknown to Shell Scott, some guy named Sader wanted Shell eliminated permanently. Why, is the question

Reuben and Amy Corbin, brother and sister, are left destitute in 1886 when Quantrill's Raiders burn their Missouri farm, kill their father, and ride off with all the livestock and supplies. Reuben swears that somehow, someday, he will find and kill the individual raider he saw gun-down his father. With no means of support, brother and sister decide to try for Oregon. They find work and earn enough money to join up with a wagon train. The wagon train becomes the platform for a continuous array of adventures, hardships and close, new-found relationships.

Where do you go when you've gone too far? That's the question Neil Van Ness faces as his carefully constructed life unravels before his eyes. The first blow comes with the discovery of his wife's affair, betraying and devastating both a friendship and a marriage. The second comes from a news report on TV when Neil learns he's the target of a nationwide manhunt by the FBI for the murder of his parents 15 years ago - a crime he didn't commit.

It was Martha Doak's last wish, and it may lead Slate Creed to his last showdown. Creed promised the half-blood squaw that he'd see her son Little Bee safe and sound to his uncle in the Choctaw Nation. Trouble is, the trip will take him through some of the meanest badland settlements the Nations have to offer. Towns where Little Bee's kind isn't wanted...and the rebel Creed is. As murderous bushwhackers stalk their trail, the boy and Creed live by quick wits, cold steel, and an unbreakable pact bound by honor and daring....

Along the harsh North California coast the otters swam, enough to fill the Russians' trading ships with valuable pelts. So there they raised an outpost. But inland lay another land, a river wilderness, where game and grizzly thrived. Into this wild land, stripped of his rank for marrying an Indian girl, Lieutenant Anton Rostov is cast. He is an man without a country, but still he is a man. He can hunt, trap, and conquer. And he discovers a power greater than his allegiance to a faraway Czar - the lure of a new world.

Hallettsville, Texas was overrun by Yankees and Northern corruption after the Civil War, and ex-Confederate officer Slate Creed lost everything and was named an outlaw as well.. Slate wants only one thing now that the Civil War is over...his good name back. The last thing he wants is trouble...but it just won't stop dogging his trail. First of all, there's his old pal Clay Allison, who's found himself a romantic rival in none other than Cole Younger of the notorious Younger clan.

Marty Keller, ex-Texas Ranger turned bounty hunter, is on the vengeance trail to find the three men who murdered his family. After being wounded, he is cared for by the widow of a murdered sheriff and she convinces him to search for the sheriff's killer as well. She asks a friend of the sheriff, an Indian, to help. The two are slowed by many battles along the way but eventually track the killers across the Southwest into Mexico. Side-tracked again, Marty gets involved in defending a large ranchero from Mexican bandits.

'The scarlet bikini which had covered a minimum of the eye-popping curves on the dead woman, lay at her feet, and my eyes focussed on her as glassily as did the dead man’s next to her. He was dead, all right. He had been shot, poisoned, stabbed, and strangled. Either somebody really had it in for him or four people had killed him. Or else it was the cleverest suicide I’d ever heard of. Me? I’m Shell Scott, private detective and I’m wondering why anybody in his right mind would commit such a complicated murder....'

Constanza Carmocha was unarmed - that is, she didn't have a gun. Well, she really didn't need one, either. Because she had all the weapons that have ruined men from time immemorial or better said - time immoral. One unlucky guy ended up with his throat slit because of her, and another was about to be bumped off. Shell Scott was sure to get to the bottom of this deadly dame....

Shell Scott, the shamus who has Sherlock whirling in his grave...the wacky knight-errant of gorgeous gals who leaves a trail of beautiful bodies behind him (not all of em dead)...the private eye who's every killer's public enemy.... This is the first book in this action-packed mystery series. The Case of the Vanishing Beauty began when one beauty vanished from sight and another died in a hail of bullets. Next on the murder list was lovely Lina....