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Ralph Cotton's Latest Book

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  • Bibliography:
    79 Books (7 Series)
  • First Book:
    June 1994
  • Latest Book:
    July 2023
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Full Series List in Order

Dead or Alive

1 - Hangman's Choice (Oct-2000)
2 - Devil's Due (Aug-2001)
3 - Blood Money (Aug-2002)

Gun Culture

1 - Friend of a Friend (Mar-2015)
2 - Season of the Wind (Apr-2017)
3 - Blowback - Treasure Coast (Oct-2021)

Gunman's Reputation

1 - Gunman's Song (Jan-2004)
2 - Between Hell and Texas (Mar-2004)
3 - The Law in Somos Santos (Jul-2005)
4 - Bad Day at Willow Creek (Dec-2006)
5 - Fast Guns Out Of Texas (Mar-2007)
6 - Ride to Hell's Gate (Sep-2008)
7 - Gunmen of the Desert Sands (Nov-2008)
8 - Crossing Fire River (Aug-2009)
9 - Escape From Fire River (Nov-2009)
10 - Gun Country (Mar-2010)
11 - City of Bad Men (Feb-2011)

A Jeston Nash Adventure

1 - While Angels Dance (Jun-1994)
2 - Powder River (Nov-1995)
3 - Price of a Horse (May-1996)
4 - Cost of a Killing (Jul-1996)
5 - Killers of Man (Jan-1997)
6 - Trick of the Trade (Jul-1997)

Ranger Sam Burrack / Big Iron

1 - Montana Red (Apr-1998)
2 - Badlands (Oct-1998)
3 - Justice (Apr-1999)
4 - Border Dogs (Sep-1999)
5 - Misery Express // Blue Star Tattoo (Apr-2000)
6 - Blood Rock (Mar-2001)
7 - Jurisdiction (Mar-2002)
8 - Vengeance Is a Bullet (Feb-2003)
9 - Sabre's Edge (Nov-2003)
10 - Hell's Riders (May-2004)
11 - Showdown at Rio Sagrado (Jul-2004)
12 - Dead Man's Canyon (Sep-2004)
13 - Killing Plain (Mar-2005)
14 - Black Mesa (Nov-2005)
15 - Trouble Creek (Mar-2006)
16 - Gunfight at Cold Devil (Aug-2006)
17 - Guns on the Border // Sabio's Redemption (Jul-2007)
18 - Killing Texas Bob (Nov-2007)
19 - Nightfall at Little Aces (Mar-2008)
20 - Ambush at Shadow Valley (May-2008)
21 - Showdown at Hole-In-the -Wall (Mar-2009)
22 - Riders From Long Pines (May-2009)
23 - A Hanging in Wild Wind (Aug-2010)
24 - Black Valley Riders (Nov-2010)
25 - Lawman from Nogales (Oct-2011)
26 - Wildfire (Jul-2012)
27 - Lookout Hill (Oct-2012)
28 - Valley of the Gun (Nov-2012)
29 - High Wild Desert (Apr-2013)
30 - Red Moon (Jul-2013)
31 - Lawless Trail (Oct-2013)
32 - Twisted Hills (Feb-2014)
33 - Shadow River (Mar-2014)
34 - Golden Riders (Oct-2014)
35 - Mesa Grande (Jan-2015)
36 - Scalpers (Apr-2015)
37 - Showdown at Gun Hill (Jul-2015)
38 - Payback at Big Silver (Oct-2015)

Sherman Dahl

1 - Fighting Men (May-2010)
2 - Gun Law (Apr-2011)

Will Summers

1 - Summers' Horses (Jul-2011)
2 - Incident at Gunn Point (Feb-2012)
3 - Dark Horses (Jun-2014)
4 - Gunman's Pass (May-2022)

Multi-Author Series List

A Ralph Compton Novel

Riders of Judgment (Jan-2001)
Death Along the Cimarron (Jan-2003)

Book List in Order: 79 titles



  • An epic drama follows the post-Civil War adventures of young Jeston Nash, the cousin to outlaws Frank and Jesse James, and chronicles his crimes, friendships, loves, and eventual rise to respectability. Reprint....



  • Outlaw Jeston Nash, the look-alike cousin of Jesse James, and his partner plot to kill Chief Red Cloud on behalf of the U.S. Cavalry, but soon they reject being tools of manifest destiny and decide to help the Native American side...



  • Hoping to reclaim his prize horse from rustler Two Diamond Joe, Jeston Nash teams up once again with companion Quiet Jack and begins an adventure on the desert frontier that brings him up against a lawman and beautiful women...



  • In a hail of thunder and gunfire, Jeston Nash fled a New Orleans billiards hall with a land deed in one hand, a blazing pistol in the other. He’d won his gamble with Quick Quintan Cordell fair and square. But in seconds, violence flared, Cordell la...



  • In a chaotic blast of gunfire, the James Gang fled a posse's attack -- and the infamous Jesse threw his cousin Jeston Nash a hoard of stolen cash. But dodging the law with $30,000 in a dusty carpetbag is a risky proposition. Hoping to lie low in ...



  • Jeston Nash knew horses--he' d stolen enough of them in his time. But the lookalike cousin of Jesse James was going respectable, almost. Then, in a New Orleans awash in drunks and blue uniforms, he sold a. horse to a well-bred lady. It was the bigges...



  • Arizona lawman Sam Burrack's draw and determination are sorely tested by Montana Red Hollis, a cunning and brutal killer who holds sway over the badlands, and Gentleman Joe Sharpe, a small-time gambler masquerading as a lawman. Original....



  • The second novel in the Big Iron series, following Montana Red, finds Arizona lawman Sam Burrack, known as "The Ranger," and his beautiful companion, Maria, on the trail of a Mexican desperado and his gang of outlaws. Original....



  • LAWLESS JUSTICE In the town of Bannet, Doss Edding, son of a wealthy land baron, led the cold-blooded Half Moon Gang on a spree of theft and murder that should have put him behind bars for the rest of his life. But the corrupt local law has set the ...






  • One lawman. One outlaw. Both looking for the same thing -- Justice... In the eves of legendary Arizona Ranger Sam Burrack, the line between right and wrong is clearly drawn--until he has to hunt down a criminal whose motives may outweigh the let...



  • THROUGH THE BADLANDS THE WAGON ROLLED.... When a fellow lawman falls ill, Sam Burrack-better known as the Ranger-agrees to take the reins of the infamous jail wagon known as the Misery Express. Driving straight across Arizona territory, the Ranger...



  • Two men on opposite sides of the law--Federal Deputy Sullivan Hart and con man and gambler Charlie Sims--find themselves with similar goals as they pursue their own individual quests for vengeance against a ruthless outlaw gang called "Los Pistoleros...



  • SHE'S PUT NINE MEN IN BOOT HILL.... In her guise as "Danny Duggin," Danielle Strange has spent the past two years hunting down the outlaws who murdered her father. Reunited with her brothers, the twins Tim and Jed, she plans to take her war across t...



  • THE BEGINNINGS OF A LAWMAN Years before he became famous as an Arizona Ranger, young Samuel Burrack was just another free spirit eager to experience life on his own in the West. When his best friend is murdered, his first instinct is simple--find ...



  • In the sequel to Hangman's Choice, Deputy Sullivan Hart is delighted to have finally arrested J. T. Priest, leader of the outlaw gang Los Pistoleros and the man who had killed his father, but he is forced to head back into action when Priest ...



  • Arizona Ranger Sam Burrack is on the trail of the Ganston Gang, who have rampaged across the state and murdered a fellow ranger. But young Billy Odle is riding with the outlaws-and Burrack has to keep him out of the crossfire......



  • UNFINISHED BUSINESS Ever since Federal Deputy Sullivan Hart lost his father to ruthless J. T. Priest, he's hoped to find the outlaw and bring him down. Then hanging judge Isaac Parker sends Hart and his partner, Twojack Roth, to break up Priest's ...



  • AND THEN THERE WERE MORE.... Disguised as "Danny Duggin," Danielle Strange hunted down the merciless cutthroats who murdered her father. Now the feared gunslick has hung up her trademark twin Colts -- and given up her secret identity -- to make some...



  • VENGEANCE OR JUSTICE? Carl O'Bannion was only a boy when his parents were mercilessly gunned down by a gang of outlaws led by Jamison "Wolf" Avrial. Now, after ten years of perfecting his skills as a gunslinger, O'Bannion is huntin...






  • When the Peltry Gang swoops into Rileyville, the attack is sudden and merciless. Before the townsfolk know what hit them, one of their own lies dead on the dirt street, Deputy Abner Webb is caught with his pants down, and just for good measure, the d...



  • THE CARDS HAVE BEEN DEALT Jack Bell left Elk Horn seven hundred dollars richer after a poker game against Early Philpot. What Jack didn't reckon on was Philpot being such a sore loser and sending a gang of lowlifes into the mountain after him to get...



  • MONEY CAN'T BUY HAPPINESS. BUT IN SABRE RIDGE, IT CAN BUY A SHERIFF.... Arizona Ranger Sam Burrack rides into Sabre Ridge with one prisoner for the town jail and a list of the man's kinfolk wanted for robbery and murder. But the sheriff -- who's bet...



  • AND THE LAST SHALL BE FAST Lawrence Shaw once got a boost out of being the quickest gun alive. Now he’s partial to telling gunfighter stories rather than living them. But that doesn’t stop every ornery shootist with an itchy trigger finger fro...



  • HE CAN’T GO HOME AGAIN After Cray Dawson helps bring down the Talbert Gang, he gains the reputation of a shootist. But Cray doesn’t consider himself a gunfighter. All he wants to do is mosey on home to Somos Santos, Texas, and get back to chasin...



  • In his years as an Arizona Ranger, Sam Burrack believes he has seen every act of cruelty and brutality one man can bestow upon another. but nothing has prepared him for the butchery perpetrated by a gang of scalp hunters in the settlement of Clifton ...



  • Arriving in the town of Redemption to investigate the murder of a sheriff -- a crime in which an innocent man has been accused, Ranger Sam Burrack, in his quest to seek justice, must end the Rio Sagrado Gang's reign of terror over the town once and f...



  • In Dead Man's Canyon, Ranger Sam Burrack is hunting the Carly twins-one evil and one good. Now one twin has turned up dead-but which one?...



  • A WOLF IN PREACHER'S CLOTHING Sloane Mosely has been gone for over a year, leaving his wife to fend off a rapacious preacher named Jessup, who's determined to add her to his harem of wives. She's been keeping up a front that her feared husband is sti...



  • In Killing Plain, Ralph Cotton displays the striking combination of gritty authenticity and lyrical beauty that has earned widespread critical acclaim.Ranger Sam Burrack has never had a partner before, but Hadley Jones has more than proven his mettle...






  • While dealing with repeated attempts on his life, Cray Dawson, the temporary sheriff of Somos Santos, must fight for the woman he loves when she is kidnapped during a bank robbery gone wrong. Original....



  • Arizona Ranger Sam Burrack must bring the woman he once loved, Ella Lang, a.k.a. The Queen of the Outlaws, and her bloodthirsty saddle partners to justice, a dangerous job that could be the death of him. Original....



  • UP TROUBLE'S CREEK Dick Lowry and his gang think robbing banks is their natural right. It has never occurred to them that Ranger Sam Burrack might thwart them, especially in a one-horse town like Olsen. It's only when the gun smoke clears that the h...



  • BLOOD RUNS THICK They came upon Julie Wilder without warning and, in an act of vicious cruelty, left her father dead and her body and spirit violated. It took the kindness of a reputed killer named Baines Meredith to nurse Julie back to health and h...



  • HELL TO PAY Ranger Sam Burrack and Marshal Pete Summers apprehend two wanted men in the town of Cold Devil. One is a sheriff gone bad. The other, a saloon keeper, manages to post a bounty for anyone who'll kill the two lawmen and set him free. A ban...



  • Reputations can't be given. They must be taken. Considered the quickest gun alive, Fast Larry Shaw works as a hired killer until his wife is slain. Although he longs to be reunited with her, he won't lie down for anyone. So when the Katlin Gang c...



  • SEE FAST LARRY DEAD IN HIS COFFIN .50 CENTS These are the words, crudely scrawled on a sign, that greet Cray Dawson when he arrives in Crabtown, Montana. Once, Larry Shaw and he gained notoriety as quick-draw artists in Texas, and he's surprised ...



  • While in the Mexican badlands, Arizona Ranger Sam Burrack teams up with a young Secret Service agent to stop Desmond Prew and his band of American mercenaries from stealing weapons from U.S. Army supply trains. Original....



  • Arizona Ranger Sam Burrack must find Texas Bob Krey, a gambler on the run from a murder charge who was in the wrong place at the wrong time, before bounty hunters and hired guns do. Territorial Judge Bass put up the bounty, since it was his brother w...



  • THE WIDOW For the last eight years, the folks of Little Aces, New Mexico, have known Emma Vertrees simply as the wife of the recently murdered sheriff. But Emma has more in common with the wrong side of the law than her neighbors could possibly imag...






  • While fast on the trail of a bloodthirsty group of Yuma jailbreakers, Arizona Ranger Sam Burrack is pitted against one of the most infamous criminal gangs ever to pull a heist in the West, the Hole-in-the-wall Gang. Original....



  • Drowning his sorrows in alcohol after the death of his beloved Rosa, Lawrence Shaw, once the fastest gun alive, gets a second chance at life when he starts working on a ranch, but the brutal Barrows Brothers Gang has other plans for him. Original....



  • SIX-GUN FROM HEAVEN When a Mexican girl shouts a warning in the midst of a gunfight, Fast Larry Shaw knows he owes her his life. That's a debt he may end up paying, because the girl believes he's the answer to her pleas for rescue from outlaws who ha...



  • Only one walks away... Arizona Ranger Sam Burrack has spent the winter healing up after being shot in the back. Now he's going to meet Memphis Beck, a member of the notorious Hole-in-the-Wall gang--and the man who saved his life. Beck's been holdi...



  • NO GOOD DEED When some drovers stumble upon the bloody aftermath of a stagecoach robbery, they discover a hidden cache of money that belongs to the most powerful man in the county. Briefly tempted to fill their saddlebags and run, they decide to do ...



  • THE LONG RIDE HOME Lawrence Shaw is known on both sides of the border -- as the fastest gun alive and for other reasons he'd like to forget. He's just spent a month in Old Mexico, drowning his demons in mescal, tequila, and peyote wine. But when his ...



  • ONE WAY OUT Lawrence Shaw is known as the fastest gun alive -- and it's no exaggeration. But after he guns down thieves and recovers a fortune in stolen gold at Fire River, being the fastest may not be enough. Garris "the Cat" Cantro and his Border...



  • BORDERLINE INSANE No one outruns Fast Larry Shaw -- especially when he runs with them. In the delirium of a mysterious head wound, Shaw stumbles upon Dexter Lowe's boys on their way across the border. They're about to meet with Corio's Black River G...



  • Civil War veteran and former schoolmaster Sherman Dahl rides the Southwest as a gun for hire. Known by both the law and the lawless as "The Teacher," Dahl sells his services to those seeking justice--and is relentless in his pursuit of wanted men....



  • DEATH MAKES STRANGE BEDFELLOWS. Arizona Ranger Sam Burrack gets more than he bargains for when he tracks a gang of bandits to a badlands outpost called Wild Wind. Fresh off a big score, the thieves ride with notorious desperado Silva "the Snake" Cer...






  • KEEP YOUR ENEMIES CLOSE--AND YOUR WINCHESTER CLOSER. Seems like every time Arizona Ranger Sam Burrack rolls over a rock, a Black Valley Rider jumps out. Bred by the law of frontier survival, Sam knows when is outnumbered and outgunned. So when two U....



  • Fast Lawrence Shaw is enjoying some solitude for a change-but it's sorely disrupted when an elite businessman asks him to defend his mining venture. A counter-offer comes from the Cut-jaw gang, who'd like to seize the operation. And Shaw will have to...



  • MARSHAL’S LAW On the trail of four wanted, Sherman Dahl, the hired gun known as the Teacher, finds his prey in the town of Kindred, New Mexico Territory. He kills all four in a saloon gunfight that leaves him wounded and in the care of soiled dove ...



  • Will Summers is a horse trader with a reputation that intimidates the most lawless of men. When the coldblooded Bendigo Brothers make off with his horses, they don't know what they're in for. Summers has a history of tracking down animals, an...



  • ONCE AN OUTLAW Arizona Ranger Sam Burrack has spent weeks on the hunt deep within Mexico's Sierra Madre. His quarry: Luis and Teto Torres, the notorious leaders of the ruthless Gun Killers Gang. Little does he know that an ambush is waiting for hi...



  • Horse trader Will Summers wasn't looking to be anybody's hero, let alone stop a bank robbery led by the son of Gunn Point's most powerful man. But when the sheriff is gravely injured and his deputy sorely outmatched, Will knows that things are only g...



  • A DISHONEST LIVING Avrial "Rock" Rochenbach is a former Pinkerton detective who has found that the wrong side of the law pays better. But he may be in over his head when a thief named Andrew Grolin offers him fifty thousand dollars to help rob a U...



  • BURNING UP Arizona Ranger Sam Burrack’s on the trail of a gang of bank robbers, a mission that’s led him right into the path of a raging wildfire. As the pines around him go up in flames, Burrack is determined to catch the murderous Cheyenne ...



  • ONE BAD TURN DESERVES ANOTHER Arizona Ranger Sam Burrack is deep in Old Mexico, tracking two of the most heinous outlaws it’s ever been his bad luck to track. Hodding “Hot Aces” Siebert and Bobby Hugh Bellibar have nine bank robberies, three t...



  • HOLY HELL Arizona Ranger Sam Burrack has encountered many a relentless outlaw in his days as a lawman, but none quite like Fannin “Dad” Orwick. The devout leader of the Redemption Riders, Orwick robs and kills to support his ever-expanding famil...



  • WANTED: ONE DEAD RANGER Arizona Ranger Sam Burrack is headed for Yuma, escorting Harvey “Cisco” Lang to prison and Adele Simpson to safety. He knows full well of their shared romantic history, and even though Adele swears she’s done with Ci...



  • A KILLER STORM In the dark of night during a raging storm, a criminal is on the loose in the Arizona badlands. His name is Wilson Orez. Half-Apache and a former cavalry scout, Orez is skilled with weapons, seasoned in the desert, and trained to ...



  • A Family Affair The Traybo brothers have a reputation for being gentleman outlaws -- the kind who will make polite chatter as they take your life savings. But Ranger Samuel Burrack has no sympathy for those who show poor manners when it comes to o...



  • When wanted men don't want to be found, they hole up in Agua Fria, Mexico. Nestled in the twisted hills of the Blood Mountain Range just across the border from Arizona, the town is divided by two ruthless gangs of thieves and killers. On one side sta...



  • KNOW YOUR ENEMY. Arizona Ranger Sam Burrack is a predator lying in wait. He's undercover as an outlaw to infiltrate a pair of vicious border gangs and bring them down. This mission has already had its share of casualties, and if Burrack has his s...



  • SOUTH-OF-THE-BORDER SHOWDOWN Trouble follows horse trader Will Summers as soon as he sets foot in Dark Horses, Mexico. A party of men is intent on hanging Summers, believing him to be a horse thief, but not before they take him to their boss--Ans...



  • Arizona Ranger Sam Burrack has something of a reputation for finishing what he sets out to do -- usually with a shot from his Winchester. He’d been on the trail of five gunmen for days. Then there was four. And he doesn’t plan on stopping until e...



  • A TOWN ON THE EDGE When Arizona Ranger Sam Burrack arrives in Mesa Grande with a few outlaws in tow, he finds the town in chaos. The sheriff’s just been shot, and the new deputy -- supposedly out in search of the gunman -- is acting suspicious....



  • Old ways and new clash in head-on confrontation: When journeyman hit man Ray Dylan agrees to look in on Sami Bloom, former mistress of a deceased Canadian crime financier, he realizes he must keep his profession a secret. What he doesn’t realize is...



  • LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON Arizona Territory Ranger Sam Burrack rides the border badlands to Iron Point hoping to capture Ozzie Cord, a mercenary who killed a sheriff back in Mesa Grande. Cord escaped jail once, but won't get away this time... But...



  • From the USA Today bestselling author of Scalpers comes a tale of gunslinging adventure in the Old West. Arizona Territory Ranger Sam Burrack is sent to retrieve the sheriff of Big Silver, Arizona, and escort him to Yuma. Sheriff Sheppard Stone on...



  • A FATHER’S FURY Arizona Territory Ranger Sam Burrack knows all too well that criminals don’t concern themselves with consequences. So it’s no surprise to him when Big Silver’s Sheriff Sheppard Stone makes an enemy of wealthy cattle ranch...



  • Florida Crime Novel . . . When Chicago hitman Ray Dylan started out he was one more young professional struggling to get ahead of the pack. But he knows his world is about to change quickly when he takes on a job for high-level KGB elitist Leonid (Th...



  • The winner of every battle under the blazing desert sun, is ultimately the sun itself. Arizona Ranger Sam Burrack is in pursuit of Max Carver, the Gentleman Bandit, leader of the infamous Wild Bunch, who has recently graduated from robbery to murde...



  • Adventure, action and dark humor galore, delivered Ralph Cotton style, in his fictional take on the real-life DEA - FBI joint Operation Swordfish, a covert effort launched by the two agencies in the early 1980s. Meet Eddie Vango—Chicago gamblin...



  • Arizona Ranger Sam Burrack is back -- and hot on the trail of the worst desperados in two countries Following a tip from a prisoner in Yuma Penitentiary, Ranger Sam Burrack is riding to the Mexican Valley to hunt down the Cowboy Gang, notorious b...



  • An all-new Western adventure featuring Arizona Ranger Sam Burrack, from bestselling author Ralph Cotton.Back on the trail of the infamous Arizona Cowboy Gang, Ranger Burrack rides with Cherokee lawman Dan'l Thorn into Mexico, where the Cowboys have s...



  • A keen judge of horseflesh takes a wild ride in this suspenseful new Western by USA Today bestselling author Ralph Cotton   Two deputies fresh from a hard-won gunfight with the gang of notorious outlaw Dolan Coyle stroll into a saloon in the dus...



  • Outlaws plot a daring heist in this exciting new Western by USA Today bestselling author Ralph Cotton   A corrupt former Army Colonel trying to run a railroad. The sheriff of a frontier town so raw its only name is New Water Stop One. And a gang...



  • This doubleheader contains the first two books in the Arizona Ranger Sam Burrack series, Montana Red and BadlandsMontana RedArizona Ranger Sam Burrack is a man of courage with a lightning-quick draw. His goal is swift justice, and his aim is as sure ...


Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Ralph Cotton has published 79 books.

Ralph Cotton does not have a new book coming out soon. The latest book, Big Iron #1, was published in July 2023.

The first book by Ralph Cotton, While Angels Dance, was published in June 1994.

Yes. Ralph Cotton has 7 series.