Once again Blue Pete features in this high-speed Western. As usual, on the side of border justice, he is marked down by his enemies for vengeance; and Pete, taking the law into his own hands, is hunted by the Mounted Police. On the prairies and mountain trails of the border a desperate double duel of wits and guns is fought out but the tough little half-breed finally triumphs in spite of the Mounties misgivings.

This exhilarating Western story describes how Blue Pete-"the most popular cowboy character in fiction"-bested Frenchy Thoreau, a cattle-thief and worse, with oddly chivalrous ideas but a killer as quick-witted as swift on the draw. On the prairies and mountain trails of the Canadian-U.S. border, rife with rustlers' feuds and treacherous bands of outlawed Indians, Blue Pete relentlessly stalked his dangerous quarry. At bay, Thoreau turned and struck with deadly precision, and Blue Pete, out manoeuvred and out-gunned, was jammed in the tightest corner of his rip-roaring career.

WHAT THIS STORY IS ABOUT As much to serve his own ends as to help the authorities Blue Pete went to the aid of the Mounties in rounding up a mysterious cattle rustler who did not shrink even from murder. How, with his characteristic genius for finding trouble, Blue Pete was soon at grips with his old friend Sergeant Mahon; how he saved the Sergeant's life and all but lost his own; and how as a result of his efforts he was himself arrested for murder only to be ultimately vindicated are stirringly told in this grand, hundred-thrills-a-minute yarn. "The most popular cowboy character in fiction," is how Truth describes Blue Pete. "Mr. Allan has the technique of the Wild West at his finger tips"-an opinion which is amply confirmed by this rollicking, swift-moving narrative of the great open spaces.

Sergeant Mahon of the Mounted Police is missing; he had been sent to the foothills west of Edmonton where only Indians lived. Blue Pete is asked to search and rescue the Sergeant-if the Indians have done anything to the Mountie then they will all pay with their lives swears the half-breed. "If yuh sent the Mounties after the Sergeant they'd never git him alive," said Blue Pete. "Them Neches 'ud do him in quick, an' thar's a million places to bury him whar nobody'd ever find him. I'm goin' to git him, Inspector. If they've done for him thar'll be so many notches on my guns I'll have to git new ones to hold 'em." This was the prelude to another of Blue Pete's amazing escapades-one which will undoubtedly thrill the many thousands to whom Blue Pete is known as the most popular and colourful cowboy in fiction.

When Blue Pete intervened with the enraged ranchers to save Butch Dorman from the revenge he so richly deserved, Pete immediately became an object of suspicion himself. That suited Pete, because, although it meant hitting the lone trail in a hail of bullets, he saw a chance of the big reward offered for the capture of the rustlers whose depredations were making the ranchers desperate. But neither he, the ranchers, the rustlers nor the Mounties quite anticipated the climax of his daring escapade. This new Western yarn, in which Blue Pete, the most popular of all cowboy characters, scores all along the line, is the most thrilling of any that the author has yet written.

Blue Pete, secretly chosen by the Mounted Police to capture an Indian murderer, in his characteristic way picks up the trail and follows it into the mountains. He becomes involved in a bank-robbery that earns him a new and implacable enemy who dogs his path throughout the chase of the murderer-a perilous, unrelenting chase in the depth of winter. Disguised as an Indian, Blue Pete moves from tribe to tribe, helped and hindered by the red men. He faces zero cold, wild animals, and flying bullets, and all the time he must keep secret the task he works at. Finally, he faces a dilemma where duty and instinct struggle for mastery.

Blue Pete, in his role of undercover helper of the RCMP, once more sets out to bring justice and retribution to a group of bank-robbers who had held up a bank in Red Deer. Ring-leader of the bandits is Flying Cloud, an Indian with a forked tongue, who tries to outwit the half-breed on his trail and in doing so start a feud between two neighbouring camps. Mountain Stream, a wise chief, sees through Flying Cloud's game, and his friendship for Blue Pete remains unshaken. But Brown Tepee is won over by Flying Cloud's easy promises. He overcomes his fear of the long arm of the Mounties, and joins forces with Flying Cloud. But Blue Pete is more than a match for both of them. Time and again he foils their cunning moves to destroy him and his friends, and finally he is able to defeat them in the very moment of their triumph. Yet even Blue Pete has to learn afresh that he cannot accomplish all he sets out to do without help from Mira, the amazing white woman who married him and shares his wild, untamed life.

Blue Pete, the half-breed that now lives near Medicine Hat with his new wife Mira, needs some police work to keep him busy-he cannot rest; it is not in his nature. Inspector Barker of the North-west Mounted Police finally assigns the 'detective' a task that seems too close to Blue Pete's past life to be attractive to him. But Blue Pete has to accept the job-and has to complete his assigned task, even if he has to go back to his U. S. Badlands to complete it! (circ. 1910)

Equal parts Sherlock Holmes and P.G. Wodehouse, Charles Finch's debut mystery A Beautiful Blue Death introduces a wonderfully appealing gentleman detective in Victorian London who investigates crime as a diversion from his life of leisure. Charles Lenox, Victorian gentleman and armchair explorer, likes nothing more than to relax in his private study with a cup of tea, a roaring fire and a good book. But when his lifelong friend Lady Jane asks for his help, Lenox cannot resist the chance to unravel a mystery. Prudence Smith, one of Jane's former servants, is dead of an apparent suicide. But Lenox suspects something far more sinister: murder, by a rare and deadly poison. The grand house where the girl worked is full of suspects, and though Prue had dabbled with the hearts of more than a few men, Lenox is baffled by the motive for the girl's death. When another body turns up during the London season's most fashionable ball, Lenox must untangle a web of loyalties and animosities. Was it jealousy that killed Prudence Smith? Or was it something else entirely? And can Lenox find the answer before the killer strikes again—this time, disturbingly close to home?