U.S. Marshal Shorty Thompson Books in Order

Marshal Shorty Thompson reaches Sister Anna too late to save her, then must protect the man accused of her death. Pursuing justice in the Southwest forces him to separate his duty from the anger surrounding the crime.

Returning two children to their home leads Marshal Shorty Thompson into a mining community controlled by a ruthless land thief. Willow Lane's missing family and stolen ranch draw him into a struggle against forced labor and murder.

Young cowboy Shorty Thompson follows stolen cattle into a confrontation with a corrupt former general. Seeking help in Washington brings an unexpected appointment as a marshal, forcing him to pursue justice across the New Mexico and Wyoming territories.

After their mother dies and their father withdraws into drink and gambling, Jimmy and his younger siblings fend for themselves. A newcomer threatens their crops and land, then Tommy’s kidnapping pushes Jimmy into defending the family.

Arrested for wearing a gun in Albuquerque, Lee Robins escapes with a young boy's help and discovers a murderous gang controls the town. Outnumbered and unsure whom to trust, he must conceal his purpose while seeking allies.

A gang’s violence and train robbery draw relatives, neighbors and lawmen into pursuit across New Mexico. Marshal Shorty Thompson joins the chase as some pursuers seek revenge and others hope to save misguided brothers from hanging.

Fourteen-year-old Janice McCord assumes her murdered twin brother’s name and pursues the men who killed her family. Her revenge mission takes her through New Mexico’s outlaw world and into conflict with cousin Marshal Shorty Thompson’s efforts to help.

In the dangerous Indian Territory, Judge Isaac Parker's small force of lawmen confronts a sprawling frontier beyond easy control. The novel follows the struggle to enforce justice across a vast region where violence tests the reach of the courts.

Winter has already brought several snowfalls when Marshal Shorty Thompson receives a desperate letter from Colorado. His friend’s wife has been kidnapped by outlaws, and unsuccessful searches leave Shorty facing an urgent rescue mission near Alamosa.

Bud Larson’s nineteenth-birthday trip to a saloon ends in a fatal gunfight after a bully draws on him. Witnesses support self-defense, but the sheriff is the dead man’s brother and vows to have Bud hanged.

A message from an old friend sends Marshal Shorty Thompson toward a young man in serious trouble. With few details to guide him, Shorty faces a long journey to discover what has happened and whether he can help.

A friend’s widow asks Marshal Shorty Thompson to recover the money stolen when her husband was killed. With foreclosure threatening her ranch and children, Shorty sets out to find a suspect who may have fled toward Montana.

A mother watches horse thieves kill her husband and baby, then sets out after them herself when Marshal Shorty Thompson refuses to let her join the posse. Recognizing their faces and stolen horses, she pursues personal vengeance.

A vast spacecraft approaches Earth in a science-fiction story imagining how humans might have arrived on the planet. Paul L. Thompson frames the speculative tale around divine creation and humanity’s beginnings, departing from his usual frontier setting.

Brothers Sam and Art Goodman travel from Missouri to Colorado with their wives, who are sisters, to settle land their father acquired. Reaching the Animas Valley, they discover a bustling new town and must establish their homes nearby.

A young Englishwoman and her brother are robbed while transporting precious family jewels to San Francisco. Marshal Shorty Thompson helps them confront the outlaws pursuing the fortune, but determined Margret proves unwilling to leave the fighting entirely to him.

Fourteen-year-old twins survive a gang’s attack on their family’s covered wagons beside the Rio Grande. With their parents dead and the killers’ faces remembered, Billy Dean and Billie Jean Randal must face the aftermath together.

Donnie and Rusty Stone join Marshal Shorty Thompson to seek justice for a murdered neighbor. Their pursuit threatens outlaws planning a rich gold-shipment robbery, and Donnie’s kidnapping turns the investigation into an urgent struggle to save him.

Winston Savage pays off his ranch mortgage with gold, attracting the banker’s curiosity about its source. Masked riders attack him on the journey home, bringing gunfire to his family’s doorstep and threatening the security he just purchased.

Cattle rustlers terrorize the sprawling ranches of the Panhandle, killing cowboys who try to follow stolen herds. Marshal Shorty Thompson poses as a drifting ranch hand to penetrate their hideout, keeping his identity secret even from those seeking his help.

Deputy Sheriff John Dunow investigates a mail-order bride operation in gold-rush Colorado. The arrival of wagons carrying girls far too young to marry raises fears that a saloon owner’s promises conceal a profitable and dangerous exploitation scheme.

New deputy marshal Betty McCabe goes undercover as Connie Blake to investigate a territorial senator and a powerful banker. Suspicious transfers of Spanish land grants point toward families silenced by death or fear, testing her newly acquired skills.

Toby and Dobie McElroy seek help after thieves shoot their father, take the money intended for a loan payment and drive off sixteen horses. Mister Long accompanies the boys home as the attack demands a response.

Seventeen-year-old Doug Brown returns to his Wyoming farm to find his father murdered, the barn burned and their cattle stolen. With Shelly Hampton, he follows the herd, a pursuit that draws them into further outlaw danger.

Roaming longhorn cattle repeatedly destroy Elijah Thompson’s crops, pasture and fences, leaving his farm threatened by foreclosure. Determined to save his livelihood, he seeks a large crew to help remove the herds from the surrounding country.

Twelve-year-old Zack Wood encounters his school bully and two companions while buying supplies for his mother. Their plan to drag him through the mud creates a dangerous confrontation, forcing Zack to respond before they can hurt him.

Orphaned fifteen-year-old Will Ross witnesses a nighttime shooting that leaves two men dead. A third man takes something from a victim’s pockets and vanishes, but Will recognizes him, placing the young witness close to a dangerous secret.

Bartie Longshore rejects a possessive cowboy and later marries Danny Bishop, whom the rival once assaulted. When Danny is shot during a bank robbery, Bartie finds herself arrested, turning their hard-won future into a fight for freedom.

Raymond Bell regains consciousness before dawn with his wife lying unresponsive in his arms. His last remembered words were a vow to hunt Gus Brimhall, linking a shattered domestic scene to a personal pursuit of vengeance.

Billy Conners is courting schoolteacher Linda Darnell when Willard Donley decides to remove his rival. Willard demands Linda attend a dance with him and ominously suggests Billy will be unable to keep their plans.

Marshal Shorty Thompson works amid the Colfax County conflict, where powerful interests use violence to pressure established settlers. Ranch burnings and intimidation draw him into defending families, including children forced to protect themselves against armed threats.

Nineteen-year-old Tim Miller leaves a trusted ranch job to see more of the West. Near La Veta, Colorado, he finds a rancher wounded by gunfire, turning his uncertain journey into a chance to help someone in danger.

Dentist and surgeon James Retzer arrives in New Mexico armed with skills learned from an aging gunfighter. After years treating riverboat patients who sometimes refused to pay, he seeks a new life practicing medicine in the West.

When outlaws kidnap Marshal Shorty Thompson to seize his Wyoming gold, Buffalo recruits Janice McCord for a rescue. The long pursuit takes her through gunfights, corrupt towns and ambush threats as she tries to reach her cousin.

After ten years in Texas, brothers Slim and Mace Sanders return to White Oaks, New Mexico, intending to stay. The unexpectedly grown town leads them onward to their grandfather and the ranch they left behind as children.

Returning to Cheyenne after college, Keith Aurzada’s city clothes attract mockery from a drunken cowboy who fires at his feet. His calm response and his father’s questions about guns introduce a homecoming that challenges appearances and expectations.

Marshal Shorty Thompson escorts Melanie Bishop toward a trial when gunmen attack their train. She is the last surviving witness against a wealthy criminal, leaving Shorty to keep her hidden and alive long enough to testify.

Marshal Shorty Thompson agrees to help the Sadler twins recover stolen paint mares and catch horse thieves linked to killings. The search expands when a Montana outlaw outfit’s bank robberies and cattle rustling complicate the case.

After her father is killed in a land-grabbing scheme, fourteen-year-old Betty Sue Gains finds little protection from local law. Taken in by another family, she learns to defend herself while awaiting the arrival of U.S. Marshal Shorty Thompson.

Small for his age, Toby Smith repeatedly faces schoolyard bullies, while his sister Stephanie fiercely defends him. Their confrontations establish a young boy’s struggle against intimidation and the family loyalty that helps him endure it.

Ron draws his wages and leaves a ranch where he has been a valued hand. Without Bobby, the familiar place no longer feels right, and he sets out on a journey with no destination in mind.

Thelma Lou Simpson finds pleasure in drawing and writing poems, often on her own. When a classmate steals her new love poem and reads it aloud mockingly, her private hopes become the subject of schoolyard humiliation.

Marshal Shorty Thompson and his partner Buffalo Blackburn search New Mexico's lava-strewn Malpais for missing women and girls. Treacherous terrain complicates their investigation, while unexplained lightning and ghostly encounters present dangers that ordinary law enforcement cannot easily resolve.

After tragedy on a Missouri riverboat, Milo Tillie eventually follows his dream of ranching in the West. His wife’s greedy uncle hires gunmen to steal cattle and ruin the family, bringing Marshal Shorty Thompson into their fight.

While tracking men who robbed and shot their grandparents, Marshal Shorty Thompson is ambushed near the Tongue River. He wakes from a head wound to discover two children have kept him alive, complicating his pursuit and recovery.

Seventeen-year-old Molly Muldoon wants to marry Eddy Blasingame despite her father’s disapproval. Eddy presses her to leave the family farm that very night, promising horses and a secret journey to Santa Rosa for their wedding.

Bradley Rodgers arrives by train in bustling Montrose, Colorado, expecting a chance to become rich. William Crowder has offered to include him in an opportunity, but Bradley’s eager arrival begins with uncertainty about what Crowder is planning.

Delivering a prisoner to Colorado State Prison, Marshal Shorty Thompson encounters a young man he knows. Bobby Skelton says a corrupt court imprisoned him at twelve for murdering his parents, prompting Shorty to question the conviction.

Investigating missing gold in New Mexico Territory, Shorty Thompson is shot while questioning men at a freight shipment. Wounded and unidentified, he lies under a doctor’s care in a town where the sheriff has his own interests.

Sixty-one-year-old Norland Cardenas has always refused to help his neighbors. When a wealthy newcomer tries to force farmers off their land through arson and violence, the valley must unite to defend everything its families have built.

Molly Madison arrives by train in Denver with urgent plans to reach Black Hawk. A rockslide complicates the route, sending her toward Idaho Springs as she pursues a purpose she keeps to herself while accepting a stranger’s help.

A plea from dancer Christina sends Shorty Thompson after a gang involved in kidnapping and bank robberies. As the outlaws travel north, his pursuit becomes a race to reach the captive woman while confronting repeated threats along the trail.

Burton and Ida Campbell survive an attack that kills their fathers during a journey west. Continuing toward a New Mexico ranch, the young pair begin searching for the gunmen, turning a promised new beginning into a pursuit of revenge.

Homer Masters begs Shorty Thompson for help after Wanda Lou is kidnapped. Her captors demand a hundred thousand dollars and the return of Jake Corley, leaving Shorty to confront a rescue complicated by money and a prisoner’s fate.

Following stolen cattle from New Mexico Territory to Wyoming, Shorty discovers that military men are involved in the theft. Unable to settle the matter locally, he heads to Washington, where his appeal brings him to President Hayes.

President Hayes sends Shorty to investigate dead mine owners and suspicious differences in ore shipments. A gunshot interrupts the case, leaving the marshal with no memory of his identity or the reason he came to the Black Range.

Eleven-year-old Timmy Wallace waits at the family ranch while his father sells their cattle. When gunmen follow the money home and attack both father and son, an ordinary return from market becomes the beginning of a long reckoning.

Ten-year-old Zack Wood and his younger sister hide beside the Cimarron River while riders steal livestock and burn their barn. Their cousins arrive nearby, forcing the children to decide how to help one another against armed attackers.

Shorty follows the Brice Newman gang across the desert, repeatedly losing a trail the outlaws deliberately scatter. With water holes far apart and his horse tiring, he must discover where the gang is headed before supplies run out.

Rancher Lander Phillips leads a quiet, hardworking life and attends church each Sunday. A preacher’s fierce warning about the punishment awaiting thieves and cheats introduces a frontier tale in which wrongdoing and fear of retribution meet.

Transferred from Wyoming to a Nebraska prison work detail, Raff Holland organizes an escape using other inmates as cover. He plans to return west and kill the lawmen he blames before fleeing across the Canadian border.

Eighty-one-year-old Monty Long promises his wounded granddaughter he will recover her kidnapped children. With weapons prepared and a pack mule ready, the experienced tracker sets out alone after six men who already have a three-day lead.

After escaping captors who attacked their family’s wagon train, brothers Darrel and Bobby Lee Martin travel west with stolen supplies. Finding a wounded stranger beside a dead horse, they interrupt their own flight to try to save him.

Edward Savage pays off his ranch mortgage with gold, drawing questions from the banker about its source. Masked riders pursue him on the way home, where his wife and daughter are forced to help defend the family.

Near Chama, Tiny and Joel Pascoe expect a quiet life until relatives leave four children in their care. With parents traveling to China, Wyoming, and Denver, the couple must manage an unexpectedly lively household alongside their farm.

Two years after gunmen killed her husband and nearly killed her, Martha Camden has recovered her strength. With her gear packed, the widow sets out to find the six attackers and the man who ordered their raid.

Buck Kilgore is accused of killing Loma Parda's mayor, but Marshal Shorty Thompson knows his friend is innocent. With eyewitnesses insisting otherwise, Shorty investigates a renewed ranch-stealing scheme and hunts the gunman behind the false accusation.

After outlaws rob and shoot his father, young Jake Ivey follows their trail. His sister Rebecca goes looking when he fails to return, joining Shorty Thompson in a pursuit that carries them across the border into Mexico.

Winston and Minnie Scroggins take their children to New Mexico’s mountain country hoping to find gold. Years of hard work and disappointment push them toward ranching instead, as they try to claim land and build a lasting home.

Gold wealth has brought rapid growth and corruption to the Black Hills, where three outlaw gangs prey on miners and townspeople. Shorty Thompson and Buck Evans are sent to restore order in a region already scarred by dispossession.

When her little brother Ted is kidnapped, ten-year-old Tillie Jane asks Shorty Thompson for help. The skilled young shooter follows a trail of kidnappers and bank robbers across the Southwest, where even a train journey offers little safety.

Marshal Hopper Scranton receives an urgent appeal from Globe, Arizona, after dozens of children disappear from the surrounding area. With the sheriff’s own son among the missing, the case draws lawmen into a search for the abductors.

Outlaw Burley Jim Jones and his gang raid gold country around Colorado Springs. After a wealthy young thrill seeker joins their orbit and is shot by Burley Jim, the killing threatens to bring the gang leader to the gallows.

Wild longhorns are destroying crops around Odessa, Texas, threatening small farmers’ livelihoods. Men and boys round up the animals for sale, then undertake a two-hundred-mile drive to New Mexico in hopes of saving their homes.

Gold-rich Helena attracts thieves, swindlers, and stagecoach robbers as wealth pours out of its mines. Into this unsettled Montana town comes a young woman determined to find a millionaire husband and secure a share of its prosperity.

Seminary student R.B. Handlin travels west after his brother’s murder and inherits a ranch. A powerful landowner engineers his imprisonment, leaving him to seek help from Shorty Thompson and allies while fighting to reclaim his life.

The Overholt family moves west with children, grandparents, wagons, and livestock, hoping to build shelter before winter. Raiders threaten their animals along the way, turning the journey toward a new homestead into a fight to protect their future.

White Oaks grows rich on gold while its county sheriff remains miles away in Lincoln. When a large outlaw gang drives the town’s only deputy out, citizens are left surrounded by thieves and killers with no local law.

After serving as a Texas Ranger and then a U.S. marshal, William Colby retires at fifty to become a rancher. His reputation as a fast, uncompromising lawman remains, shaped by decades pursuing outlaws across the West.

Widowed while traveling west, Ora May Olsen must raise her children as the wagon train presses toward New Mexico. Settling near Wagon Mound brings another threat when a wealthy rancher’s son uses hired gunmen to drive farmers out.

Wounded and losing blood, Shorty rides into Holbrook with the Collins brothers as prisoners. The deputy warns that their father controls the town, leaving the marshal to hold his captives while badly needing medical help himself.

After delivering a dangerous prisoner from Albuquerque to Abilene, Shorty expects to return home by train. Flash floods have destroyed bridges, so he chooses to ride back with Dunnie rather than wait weeks for the railway to reopen.

While running errands for his mother, Roy Dale accepts a small payment to hold a stranger’s horse outside a bank. The rider returns, shoots him without warning, and rides away, turning a routine town visit into a violent mystery.

Marshal Shorty Thompson faces a long journey home from Canada with an escaped murderer. Ordered to return Nathanial Grossmont alive, he must escort a prisoner accused of killing a judge and his wife across multiple train connections.

Senate leader Jack Dorsey refuses to allow a vote on millions in public funding for a private enterprise without oversight. As senators prepare to campaign, his stand provokes fierce opposition in a political dispute over money and power.

Francisco Morales rides hundreds of miles to ask Marshal Shorty Thompson for help after two men abduct Lucy. His desperate arrival at the B Bar S Ranch brings another urgent search for a missing woman.

Twins Bobby Ray and Bobbye Fay Kimball celebrate their birthday amid Fourth of July festivities in Las Vegas, New Mexico. A stranger’s promise of a puppy draws them toward a wagon, where accomplices turn the celebration into a kidnapping.

Hugh and Margret Hodges purchase land along New Mexico’s Pecos River, hoping to build a future there. Their seller warns that an unquestionable deed may offer little protection from powerful cattle ranchers eager to take what they own.

A letter summons Shorty from his New Mexico ranch to Denver for an assignment he strongly opposes. Despite his protests, the marshal must leave his horse behind and board a passenger ship bound for England.

A rancher’s train journey recalls the conflicts surrounding railroad construction in New Mexico Territory. As engineers seek a route beside the Rio Grande, farmers resist plans that threaten their irrigation systems and land held for generations.

Eleven-year-old Rowdy Miller quietly watches wild horses until he notices a hungry colt without its mother. His attempt to comfort the rejected animal begins an unusual bond when the colt follows him home to the family farm.

Widowed after her husband is murdered while plowing, Sally Ward keeps farming to support her two children. When a man offers to buy her land and threatens her after she refuses, protecting their home becomes a dangerous struggle.

Ten-year-old Cody helps his father and grandfather drive cattle toward Amarillo. When seven riders attack their camp and shoot the men, the boy refuses the gang leader’s order to run, determined to check on his family.

Grady Morris travels to meet a teenage mail-order bride and her father at the train. His threats toward his own men reveal the danger awaiting the girl before she even arrives at her new home.

Mary Coats asks Marshal Shorty Thompson to find her husband, who vanished after driving cattle to Silver City. With the man, his horse and his dog missing, she fears Shorty's search will end with a body.

Monty Combs leaves his family's Colorado ranch with his young son, unaware that armed men accuse him of killing the sheriff. His wife races to warn him before a determined mob can carry out its hanging.

An unexpected presidential request sends Shorty Thompson toward Denver, leaving him unsure what assignment awaits. As he prepares for an eight-day round trip away from home, friends speculate about why the marshal has been summoned.