John D Nesbitt

"Under Heaven's Own Blue is a collection of short fiction. In "Truth and Principle," detective Henry Tresh helps a woman find the truth about the death of her son. In "Double Deceit," detective Dunbar is tracking a malefactor who killed a woman and is now conducting a medical practice without a license. In "Bitter Range," ranch hand Orin Blake becomes caught up in an intrigue in which a former ranch hand is discovered to be having an affair with the...

"An aspiring Ohio transplant's dream of owning his own spread in turn-of-the-century Wyoming is put on hold due to a series of inconvenient murders. Earl Miner, who owns the Pick, makes no bones about insisting that every man who works for him file a claim to 160 acres under the Homestead Act and then sell it to him so he won't be troubled by competing ranchers in the Decker Basin. As soon as cowpuncher Reese Hartley bridles at that arrangement, foreman...

"These eight stories range in length from flash fiction to novella. In "Incident at Blue Nose Creek," an investigator pursues a suspect for the serial murders of three saloon girls. In "Visitors in Cantera," the narrator receives a visit from questionable relatives. In "In the Breaks," a girl goes deer hunting with her grandfather and has to fend off unwelcome advances from a young man. In "Man of Trees," a homesteader helps solve the murder of an...

"Shortly after Dunbar goes to work at the Hook ranch, a ranch hand who aspires to marry the cook's niece is found dead. The niece, Vivian, works at the mercantile, and her boss seems to be fond of her. Another cowhand on the ranch also fancies her, but he, too, ends up dead. Dunbar and Edwin "Rye" Ryerson, the cook who tells the story, go to a local brother to learn more. Back in town, Dunbar and Rye learn that Madeline, a street girl, has been killed....

"Dunbar, working on a ranch in the Niobrara country in Wyoming, connects the death of a hardscrabble homesteader with the death of an old horse trader some fifteen years earlier. As Dunbar goes to work on a corral project in town and then on fall roundup, more murders take place--a wandering drunk who has picked up gossip in an alehouse, and then the proprietor of the alehouse. People who know too much are being silenced. An old woman named Verona...

Jim Fontaine wants to get a new start in life by settling on his own piece of land near the town of Redwillow. He isn't there very long, though, when a saloon girl named Emma turns up dead and a friend of his, Charley Drake, gets thrown in jail for the murder. Nora Winterborne, who is new in town, confides to Fontaine that she is interested in the case because Emma was her sister, but she has to keep quiet. Fontaine also learns of the disappearance...

Cowhand Lawrence Elwood investigates the theft of cattle from the Crown Butte ranch, but soon realizes that whoever is behind the missing cattle is also out to kill him.