1840's Alta California is on the verge of revolution. The Mexicans struggle to keep their gracious life-style, the Indians have sworn to defend their tribal heritage. Both are doomed by the inevitable war with the colossus to the east. America is determined to reach the shores of the Pacific. In this turbulent land comes John Clinton Ryan, an adventurer, a seaman, a man who must learn the ways of the vaquero if he is to survive. For only then will he have a chance against cruel Mexican soldados and a brutal American captain who has sworn to see him hang.

John Clinton Ryan is a man caught in the gunsights of history, traveling across Mexican Alta California in the mid-1800s. As the rumblings of war grow in cabinet rooms in Mexico City, Los Angeles, London, and Washington, and in the hearts of those who have already lost loved ones in the violent struggle for this magnificent land, Clint will find himself hunted by the U.S. government; robbed of his gold, his guns, and almost his life by a vicious Mexican bandit; and forced to choose sides between two dangerous enemies. And only when the musket fire stops and the smoke clears will he know which flag flutters free, which side prevailed... and at what cost.

Another exciting Clint Ryan western.... Clint finds himself in a bargain that takes him into the dregs of San Francisco and the Barbary Coast, amid the baracoons and flesh traders. When a new freedman and he are thrown together, he finds a new friend and another who's repulsed by the selling of Chinese girls to satisfy the most deviant interests. And flashilng blades and gunsmoke result. The Devil's Bounty, another rock 'em, sock 'em adventure from L. J. Martin/

Statehood has come to California, a rich young land of golden opportunity. Speculators, fortune hunters, roughnecks, and con men have come from every corner of the earth to stake a claim. And nowhere is the competition more cutthroat than on the riverboats plying the waters from San Francisco into the wide-open interior. Money flows in the direction of progress, and where there is money, there is sure to be greed, violence, and deceit. When former seaman John Clinton Ryan signs on as master-at-arms on the Benicia Belle, he finds he may have set his hand to his own death warrant. Blackmailed by the Belle's owner, and drawn to a woman as beautiful and as dangerous as the sea he left behind, Ryan sats off on a murderous new course. Framed for a crime he didn't commit, he has one last chance to exact a measure of justice and revenge...before his debt to the hangman comes due

In this western, Martin has produced a land-locked, Old West version of Peter Benchley's Jaws . Chased from its habitat among California's giant redwoods, a mammoth grizzly worshiped as a bear god by the local Indians goes on a rampage. When the son of the Indians' chief is killed by the animal, the tribe seeks out Clint Ryan to hunt it down. Although he demurs at first, circumstances force him to join both Indians and other hunters and to go after the bear. With tight plotting, Martin manages to keep the reader's attention, and series fans should not be disappointed.

After fighting for independence in the war against Mexico, Clint Ryan carved out a homestead in the wild San Joaquin Valley. A gringo to the Californios, a white eye to the Indians, an obstacle to the miners, a target to those who'd tried to cross him, he only wanted to raise fine horses and be left alone. But he was caught up in the festering boom town of Los Angeles, and between the Californios trying to save a way of life, and miners, gamblers, and merchants trying to exploit it, and the law trying to jail and hang him...and only gun smoke and courage would get him back on the trail to his ranch.