Category Archives: Books

News from Lizard Key Books

October 2023

My newest book has just been released. ‘Showdown at Cedar Gulch’ is the newest and number eight in the ‘Texas Jack’ series. Also, the second edition of ‘Lizard Key’ has also recently been released.

I’ve been gathering research material for a new western book which will not be a ‘Texas Jack’ western. It will follow the life of a young man captured by Indians, his life with them, his escape and his adventures as he moves through the wild west. No title yet, but I’ll be working on it over the winter and hope it’s ready by spring.

The third book following Nick Roberts and his modern-day pirates on Lizard Key is in the final processes of re-write… again, no final title on it yet. This story will definitely be done by Spring. So, over the winter I’ll be working on a western and a pirate book when I’m not playing golf, diving or fishing.

My good friend, Bart Buchanan, just released his first book, ‘Black Coffee Pork Sausage and a Homicide’. It’s available on Amazon. I know he’s put a great deal of effort into it, and we’ve talked several times as he navigated the process. Check it out.

Lizard Key

What do the following have in common?

A teenaged smuggler of Mayan artifacts, a Nazi Admiral fleeing Germany at the end of World War II, stolen gold, a lost submarine, a beautiful woman seeking revenge, a corrupt United States Senator, a Neo Nazi terrorist publisher, a Voodoo priestess, and a modern-day pirate.

The answer is Lizard Key!

Continue reading Lizard Key

Texas Jack: Showdown at Cedar Gulch

A Western Adventure: Texas Jack Book 8

When Jack McKenna, also known as ‘Texas Jack’, and Tommy Vee were given the assignment by the people of Filo, Texas to go to Cedar Gulch and escort the town’s new schoolteacher back, it seemed to be a simple task. Since there was no stagecoach or train service between Cedar Gulch and Filo, it would be a one week trip each way. All they needed to do was ride to Cedar Gulch and return with the new schoolteacher.

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Allah’s Scorpion

The American cowboy is an icon recognized worldwide. Cowboys represented courage, independence, self-reliance and the freedom of the new frontier. Western stories of the old wild west are a classic staple but if you believe there are no longer cowboys around, you’d be wrong. Cowboys are still very much a part of the American landscape and living the cowboy code is still their way of life.

When an Islamic terrorist known only by the name Allah’s Scorpion is hired by a radical Muslim sect to attack the United States with a weapon of mass destruction, the plan is only partially completed. Allah’s Scorpion escapes with a few men from the terrorist cell who are helping him. They flee to a place away from a major city where they believe the authorities will be looking for them and go to Montana.

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Terror of the Flesh Eater

Ralph Glidden (1881-1968) was a self-proclaimed, self-taught archeologist who lived on Catalina Island from the age of fifteen. He was primarily viewed as a charlatan, self-promoter, and grave robber but he did discover over 800 grave sites and 4000 skeletons on Catalina Island. He was the curator of a morbidly bizarre museum where he displayed the bones taken from the graves. Shelves held up with thigh bones displayed sculls among a variety of other artifacts. Towards the end of his life, he claimed to have uncovered the secret history of Catalina’s past, a race of ‘White Indians’ and a race of giants that inhabited the island. He related a tale of finding the grave of a ‘Royal Princess’ buried in a ceremonial 138-pound urn with a group of sixty-four children buried with her and at the bottom of the grave, the skeleton of a seven-foot, eight-inch giant. Mainstream scientists rebuffed him and his findings, thoroughly discrediting him. His claim was never validated and his collection of skeletons, reportedly sent to several museums, has never been seen again.

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Happy Halloween!

Just released in time for Halloween, ‘The Quick, The Dead and the Undead’, a western horror anthology. I was honored to be included with some of the best and most successful western authors of our day on this collaborative project. The book is currently available in the KINDLE format and will soon be released as a paperback on AMAZON BOOKS.

The Quick, the Dead, and the Undead, Kindle Edition

The Quick, the Dead, and the Undead

by  Charles Ray  (Author), Mark Marchetti  (Author), Fred Staff  (Author), Peter Alan Turner(Author), Malcolm Hotzman (Author), Robert Manns  (Author), Jay Peck  (Author), Macon Steel(Author), Jerry Underhill  (Author)   Format: Kindle Edition

Texas Jack: Preacher Jones Frontier Avenger

A Western Adventure: Texas Jack Book 7

Grady Jones life was hard as a child, and it didn’t get better with age. His father died when he was young and a few years later his mother was killed in a senseless shooting. He was on his own until the Reverend Barnaby took him in. Tensions were high in that period just before the Civil War and they lived in Ohio at that time, a border state. The Reverend was anti-slavery and a staunch abolitionist who worked with the underground railroad helping slaves flee to freedom.

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Lynching at Stone Creek

A Novel of the Old West

Fort Smith, Arkansas sat on the border of Indian Territory in 1875. It was a rowdy place filled with brothels, saloons, and outlaws. It was said that there was ‘no law west of Arkansas’ and not much in Fort Smith. That changed when Judge Isaac Parker was appointed to the bench. Known as ‘the hanging judge’, Judge Parker was stern and unbending in his application of the law… his court often referred to as the ‘court of the damned’. The jail at Fort Smith where outlaws were held awaiting trial wasn’t a pleasant place to be and was considered to be ‘hell on the border’.

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Texas Jack: Morgan Hawk’s Last Ride

A Western Adventure: Texas Jack Book 6

The Kansas/Missouri border was a dangerous place during the Civil War and in the years that followed. Kansas entered the Union as an anti-slavery State only months before the war started and was bordered by the Pro-slavery State of Missouri. ‘Border Ruffians’ like William Quantrill fought for the Confederacy while ‘Free Staters’ and ‘Jayhawkers’ fought for the Union. They were all guerrilla fighters led by men of often questionable morality. There was only some measure of legitimacy given to them by the Confederate and Union governments respectively because they claimed they were fighting for the same cause. The results on both sides was the same… people killed while towns were sacked and burned.

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