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Being caught, bloody gun in hand, leaning over the body of the man he had threatened to kill forces bronc-buster Glenn Crawford to turn up at the Big O ranch, a weary, footsore fugitive with more than one score to settle.Even the murder of the ranch owner in San Antonio had not prepared Crawford for the state of affairs he finds at the ranch. His sudden presence there seems to scare some of the crew half to death and lead others to try to kill him every chance they get. For the moment, however, Crawford is more interested in the state of affairs in his own body than in those of the Big O and the murderer he is sure the ranch harbors. A veteran of the saddle, Crawford discovers that since an accident which he suspects was planned, he goes into a frenzy of pain and trembling panic whenever he gets near a horse. But in spite of the torture it costs him, Crawford stays on at the ranch. He knows he cannot be a free man until he finds the murderer of Otis Rockland. Nor can he be a whole man until he conquers the black devil of a killer horse, Africano. After he meets Merida Lopez, an exotic beauty whose presence at the Big O is surrounded by mystery, he has a third motive for staying around, although he stands to lose his reason if not his life. Trapped by forces which he cannot understand, and half-crazed by the torturing pain and panic which he tries desperately both to overcome and to hide, Crawford gets himself more and more hopelessly entangled in what, as old Delcazar points out, looks like the most dangerous thing that ever hit the wild brush country. Crawford is offered a strange proposition by sinister Dr. Huerta; he listens to Merida's spellbinding tale of Santa Anna's chests—and as he listens, the jagged third of a map he possesses, plus a dying man's painfully gasped out words, take on a new and important meaning; he waits, trapped, weaponless, for a killer to come nearer, nearer—And he delivers to his other pursuers the body of one sent out to kill him—only to become more deeply enmeshed in new and still more terrifying trouble. Crawford's irritation at being stirred by Merida, whom he alternately respects and suspects of playing him for a fool, doesn't prevent him from riding secretly with her in the night in search of a place so malicious few men have ever stepped foot in it. Nor does it later prevent him from risking an agonizing death to follow her into it. Before the true murderer reveals himself, and before Crawford can again call himself a whole man, much violent action takes place. Set against the exciting background of the untamed Texas border country, this is a thrilling brew of suspense, quick death, adventure, and love.

“Town of Twenty Triggers” opens this new trio of short novels by Les Savage Jr., marking their first appearance in book form. He was known only as the Joker, a portly, chuckling man with a bland smile, a poker face, and an amazing ability to make a deck of cards perform any trick he desired. His traveling companion is Emmet Pierce, a Texan fast with his gun. When this duo arrives in the small ranching town of Benton, the Joker is ready to take it over and claim it for his own. He begins by winning ownership of The Palace, the largest gambling hall in town. The twenty guns of the title describe the gunslingers the Joker hires to enforce his hold on the town. The only thing the Joker overlooks in his fiendish plans is that Emmet Pierce is a man with a moral conscience.The Pacific Railroad in “Where Hell's Coyotes Howl” wants to build their spur line from Santa Fe to Tucson and they want the right of way through Apache Gap, the only passage through the Tanques Verdes. Otherwise they will have to lay about two hundred extra miles of track around the northwest corner of the Verdes. The strong man in Tucson is Face Card Farrow who has enough secret evidence against the wealthy and powerful to get his own way. When Face Card is murdered, it is discovered that most of his papers have gone missing. Amid all of this turmoil, matters are brought to the point of crisis when Laramie Drake, owner of the Double Deuces Ranch, saves teenage Midge Lawrence from a whipping by her court-appointed guardian, Eben Hazard. Although Laramie has no legal right to keep Midge with him, Midge wants to stay, a situation complicated by the fact that Midge becomes the focus of all the factions because she is believed to own the deed to Apache Gap.In “The Teton Bunch” it is all a matter of following the money—630 gold double eagles stolen in 1882. The daring robbery was perpetrated by the Teton Bunch, but afterward the gang was forced to break up and scatter. Gordie Hammer carried the money, but he didn't have it any more when he was captured, tried, convicted, and sentenced. Now Hammer is a small rancher, but everyone, including Sheriff Victor Bondurant, believes Hammer has hidden the money and knows its whereabouts. Matters get worse when a number of gang members show up, hoping to force Hammer to give them their share.

A novel of rare genius, The Man with the Golden Arm describes the dissolution of a card-dealing WWII veteran named Frankie Machine, caught in the act of slowly cutting his own heart into wafer-thin slices. For Frankie, a murder committed may be the least of his problems.The literary critic Malcolm Cowley called The Man with the Golden Arm'Algren's defense of the individual,'while Carl Sandburg wrote of its'strange midnight dignity.'A literary tour de force, here is a novel unlike any other, one in which drug addiction, poverty, and human failure somehow suggest a defense of human dignity and a reason for hope.