LJ Martin Books in Order

Sheriff Ned Cody rides beyond his jurisdiction into the Mojave Desert after learning that two close friends are barely alive in a madman’s custody. Rescuing them requires confronting their captor in country where his badge provides little protection.

Wanted for desertion by a brutal sea captain, John Clinton Ryan becomes entangled in Alta California’s revolution. His seafaring experience and training with Californio horsemen help him navigate shifting loyalties as rival governments and enemies close around him.

Pursued by a cruel sea captain, John Clinton Ryan finds refuge among California’s vaqueros and earns the name El Lazo for his skill with a rope. Revolution draws him into a struggle where survival depends on recognizing uncertain allies.

A bargain leads Clint Ryan into San Francisco’s Barbary Coast and its traffic in human lives. Joining forces with a newly freed man, he confronts traders selling Chinese girls, risking violence while attempting to challenge their brutal business.

Navy midshipman Ned Beale leads sailor volunteers into battle against Mexican soldiers alongside Kit Carson and Captain John Charles Fremont. The novel follows his role in the conflict, connecting a young naval officer’s fortunes with California’s struggle for control.

Former seaman Clint Ryan joins a California riverboat as master-at-arms and encounters blackmail, dangerous attraction, and commercial rivalry. Framed for a crime, he must find a way to secure justice before his new employment ends at the gallows.

Driven from its redwood habitat, a massive grizzly terrorizes the surrounding country and kills a chief’s son. Clint Ryan reluctantly joins the hunt, confronting both the animal’s deadly strength and other hunters whose motives threaten the pursuit.

Bakersfield marshal Ned Cody receives warning that notorious gunman John Tenkiller is heading his way. Already wanted for multiple killings, Tenkiller brings a reputation that forces Cody to prepare for a confrontation with an especially dangerous outlaw.

Archaeological evidence appears to establish Native American ownership of Manhattan, creating an extraordinary legal opportunity. A Native American lawyer attempts to use the discovery to build an enormous casino in the city, turning historical claims into a contemporary power struggle.

An ancient deed discovered beneath a Manhattan skyscraper may establish Native American ownership of valuable land. Gambling analyst Stephen Drum and archaeologist Paula Fox become involved in a struggle over the document, facing powerful business interests and personal rivalries.

Clint Ryan wants to raise horses peacefully in the San Joaquin Valley after the war with Mexico. Drawn into booming Los Angeles, he confronts competing commercial interests, threatened Californio traditions, and authorities determined to imprison or hang him.

An honest man caught in the wrong circumstances, Sam Stranahan emerges from a punishing ordeal determined to obtain justice. Picking up a gun, he prepares to act on his own terms when the law offers no satisfactory answer.

Simon Striker stands to profit by stopping construction of the transcontinental railroad across his mountain. As immigrant workers face sabotage and murder, an Irishman and a Chinese swordsman join forces to confront the man turning their workplace into a trap.

A wealthy rancher sends seven mercenaries to seize Dan McKeag’s Montana property, killing his wife and driving his nephew into the wilderness. Left alive despite the assault, McKeag prepares revenge against the attackers and the man who hired them.

Colin and Kevin McQuade must drive two hundred cattle to an army post before winter closes in. A gambler, a pursued young woman, and threats across contested Montana country complicate the journey, bringing unexpected danger at Rocky Butte.

Released after enduring years in a notorious western prison for a crime he did not commit, Ryan O’Rourke seeks the people responsible. His pursuit of revenge carries him across Arizona, where he intends to impose his own justice.

After a gold shipment disappears from the transcontinental railroad, Kane McCreed is recruited to track the robbers. His knowledge of outlaw hideouts makes him useful, while an old grievance and a threatened woman give the pursuit personal urgency.

Forced aboard a California-bound ship, young Sam McCreed survives a brutal voyage around Cape Horn. Hardened by punishment and dangerous work, he reaches an unsettled California determined to pursue revenge while mastering the skills needed to survive ashore.

David Drake pursues his ambitions in business and personal life, confronting powerful men equally determined to obtain what he wants. Their rivalry becomes a contest shaped by vindictiveness and revenge, with success carrying stakes beyond an ordinary corporate victory.

This writing guide examines plot, characterization, pacing, and description through practical examples. Drawing on experience in westerns, thrillers, and science fiction, its authors explain ways to strengthen prose and sustain reader interest from the opening through the conclusion.

Dexter Reno leaves Navy Intelligence expecting an easier life as an undercover campus officer. Moving into a troubled fourplex instead draws him into deception and turmoil, where appealing neighbors and apparently simple situations conceal dangers he failed to anticipate.

The author reflects on a difficult seventeen-year marriage and eventual divorce, tracing a search for personal happiness. The book addresses infidelity, future planning, and conversations with children while considering how individual choices affect troubled relationships and life after separation.

Drawing on life at Montana’s Wolfpack Ranch, this cookbook combines country cooking with a broader range of flavors. Its approach includes wild game, fresh-caught fish, cast-iron meals, and recipes adapted for home kitchens rather than outdoor cooking alone.

Myrtle Mae and her companions present a cartoon-based look at American life and politics. Combining humor with serious commentary, the collection reflects the author’s conservative perspective on developments he sees affecting the country and its direction.

Haunted by the Civil War, McBain hesitates to return to his family until news arrives that his sister and her household have been murdered. Becoming a lawman gives him a badge while his pursuit remains driven by retribution.

Bounty hunter Dev Shannon usually enjoys profitable work tracking fugitives across the country. When a drug dealer kills one of his oldest friends, the latest assignment becomes a personal pursuit, turning his professional manhunt into a search for revenge.

Bounty hunter Dev Shannon enjoys life aboard his boat in Santa Barbara Harbor, but earning that comfort means tracking dangerous fugitives. His work takes him away from the waterfront into the risks of finding wanted people and bringing them to justice.

Starving and missing part of a leg, Beau Boone reaches the rough railroad town of Nemesis with little left to lose. Befriended by Mr. Pettigrew and Miss Alice, he becomes a saloon’s shotgun guard amid another deadly conflict.

A billionaire hires Brad Bennedict’s bounty-hunting team to recover twin daughters allegedly drugged by a rapper. When their employer is kidnapped before paying, the case expands from wealthy Montecito to Florida swamps, involving the crew in an escalating manhunt.

With his family running out of food, young Juan leaves home to seek work across California’s dry San Joaquin Valley. His dream of riding a tall horse brings unexpected danger when his journey takes a more threatening turn.

Jonas Cable’s secluded Montana life changes when his estranged daughter asks him to rescue a grandson he never knew existed. Taking responsibility for a troubled fourteen-year-old from East Los Angeles also risks bringing the boy’s gang connections into his world.

An ancient document discovered beneath Manhattan pulls Steve Drum into a struggle over historical injustice and the survival of a people. Powerful enemies oppose his efforts, forcing him to uncover the truth while fighting to stay alive.

L.J. Martin explores food and kitchen life during California’s great rancho era through recipes and historical accounts. Quotations from contemporary journals and books illuminate the practices behind the dishes, connecting everyday cooking with the people and circumstances of the period.

These crime stories connect wrongdoing with religion in different ways, bringing questions of belief into criminal situations. L.J. Martin’s collection follows the intersection of faith and crime through short narratives whose shared religious thread links otherwise varied cases.

L.J. Martin brings together contemporary and Western short stories alongside his poetry and song lyrics. The collection presents several forms of his writing in one volume, moving between fictional narratives and shorter verse rooted in his own creative work.

These stories explore California before the transcontinental railroad, when the approaching Civil War and arriving fortune seekers shaped a changing society. One tale follows Ted Judah’s search for a Sierra crossing, connecting imagined frontier lives with the region’s historical transformation.

Former Marine Mike Reardon uses his military training to solve dangerous problems for clients. Recovering stolen aircraft or boats, confronting drug debts, and protecting people marked for death become assignments requiring the searching and destructive skills his earlier service developed.

Dex Reno leaves naval police work expecting a quiet position on UCLA’s campus. Instead, drugs, gunfire, and the dangerous possibilities of snake venom disrupt that plan, drawing him into a medical mystery where a substance can either heal or kill.

After his Mexican wife is killed, Quint Reagan abandons his badge, sells his ranch, and pursues the seven men responsible. Their powerful employer and a large ranch workforce stand between the grieving former lawman and the revenge he seeks.

Mike Reardon investigates the theft of a fifty-million-dollar G5 business jet and discovers an Air Force colonel behind it. Traveling into South America with his allies, he faces an opponent whose military resources make recovering the aircraft especially dangerous.

An oil company hires Mike Reardon after drug dealing in the Bakken field drives up accidents and lost work. Its executive is Reardon’s former commander, making the assignment both professional and personal as he confronts dealers disrupting the operation.

Mike Reardon expects finding a billionaire’s missing daughter to be straightforward, but she has joined an environmental extremist group. Investigating its intentions forces him to distinguish idealistic recruits from dangerous actors as the potential threat grows beyond one family.

Mike Reardon and his fellow contractors accept a mission to rescue Americans held by a Taliban mullah. The assignment places them amid hostile forces, requiring the former Marine's team to fight its way through danger while keeping the captives alive.

A kidnapping involving NATO secrets becomes personal when one of Mike Reardon's crew is taken. His determination to retrieve the captive leads him into Russia, risking conflict with American agencies and consequences extending well beyond the rescue mission.

Mike Reardon accepts a bodyguard assignment protecting a popular country singer, but she is abducted before he can report for work. Tracking his missing employer draws him into a confrontation involving Albanian criminals and mobsters from Las Vegas.

After witnessing Union soldiers kill his father, young Bradon McTavish is caught up in the Civil War. A parole requiring him to head west brings him to Montana, where familiar enemies, new allies, and a forbidden relationship await.

Mike Reardon usually avoids assignments near his Las Vegas home, but a bombing that kills a casino owner's granddaughter changes his mind. The investigation entangles him with shifting loyalties while federal and local authorities put him under suspicion.

Returning from the Civil War, Linc Dolan discovers that his former commander declared him dead and married his intended bride. Wounded and wanted, he finds shelter with a widow, then joins two other wronged men in pursuing revenge across Montana.

Taggart McBain leaves the mountains after learning that a cattle baron and his men have brutally attacked his sister's family. Armed for revenge, he heads toward Nemesis, Nevada, where the pursuit exposes unexpected complications surrounding the reported deaths.

American intelligence agencies recruit Mike Reardon to enter North Korea and retrieve three women related to a potential defector. Their connection to a former nuclear-program chief makes the rescue valuable, while the mission places his team in hostile territory.

Framed by a wealthy man and his former best friend, Brannigan lands in a brutal western prison. Survival becomes preparation for escape as he looks for a chance to break free with a companion and confront those responsible.

After locusts destroy his crops, Jake Zane takes work guarding a wagon and mule train from Oregon to gold-rush San Francisco. Delivering its cargo could support his family, but the journey requires surviving mountain crossings, dangerous weather, and armed threats.

Eight crime stories trace the consequences of minor offenses that grow into much darker acts. L.J. Martin follows seemingly small transgressions toward murder, betrayal, and other serious crimes, exploring how an initial wrong can set greater destruction in motion.

A bodyguard assignment aboard a cruise ship turns into a rescue mission when terrorists seize American women for ransom. Mike Reardon pursues the captives into North Africa, determined to recover both his client and people who have become personally important.

Young Jake Zane must protect his mother and sisters as their family travels the Oregon Trail. Helped by an escaped slave, he faces disease, accidents, harsh weather, and violence while growing into the responsibility of keeping everyone alive.

Nine Western short stories bring together frontier conflicts, lawmen, rivalries, and the struggles surrounding settlement and survival. L.J. Martin’s collection moves across different corners of the Old West, following people whose choices unfold amid rough terrain and uncertain justice.

Arriving in gold-rush San Francisco, Jake Zane clashes with a dangerous gang and finds help from Lord Stanley-Smyth. Work aboard the lord’s ships carries him along the coast and toward the Sandwich Islands, where unfamiliar dangers test his growing independence.

Lord Stanley-Smyth assigns Jake Zane to oversee a notorious San Francisco saloon as it becomes the Piccadilly. Managing gamblers, police, tong soldiers, and competing loyalties forces the young countryman to mature quickly while protecting his employer’s increasingly prestigious investment.

After his bride is killed and his fortune stolen, Conn pursues the nine men responsible for destroying his new life. Their trail leads into the Valley of Skulls, where his determination to obtain justice threatens to consume everything remaining to him.

Conn Callihan reaches Tombstone with a dangerous reputation and forms friendships with the Earps and Doc Holliday. Caring for three orphans gives him new responsibilities, but kidnapping, hostile cowboys, and mountain dangers threaten the family he is trying to protect.