Fiction Titles by Bill Yenne
The Fugitive Gideon Safford Trilogy
The time is the 1870s, and as the Trilogy begins, the Westering man, the fugitive, Gideon Safford is in Montana Territory, ready to strike out toward the front range of the Rocky Mountains, and to cross the Continental Divide into his future. But fate has other plans.
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Book 1: Death Stalks the Mountains
Gideon Safford drifts into town quietly and unpretentiously, fully and completely expecting to drift out again in that same manner, just as he has passed like a shadow through so many other settlements and fading boomtowns across the West. It is not to be. Guns are drawn. Safford kills a man to save a man, but quickly finds that he has helped to upset a delicate balance of conflicting interests in the foothills and placers across the remote Elk Fork country of Montana Territory. As the wind ruffles the golden leaves of the aspens, war explodes between avarice and innocence. Cold hearts exact cold‑blooded revenge. Safford puts a thumb on the scales of justice, but a mysterious malevolence lurks within the deepest ravines. Winter falls hard upon the country, icy winds blow, death stalks the mountains, and vultures circle in the sky.
Book 2: Eyes Like a Blizzard
Setting out to cross the Rocky Mountains on the threatening near edge of the first big blizzard of the Montana winter is for gamblers, for takers of chances. Setting out to cross the Rocky Mountains had been Gideon Safford’s goal, and he had taken the wager. Safford survives certain death in one blizzard only to find himself making a promise to brave hardships and bullets to locate an enigmatic woman with eyes like a blizzard. Because of her strange eyes, which once seen are never forgotten, this oracle has become a mysterious object of wonder, speculation and avarice on both sides of the Divide, a woman about whom people speak only in whispers.
Book 3: You Can’t Outrun Your Past
Having thwarted a stagecoach holdup, Gideon Safford rode into Helena, Montana being touted as a hero. It was looking like his distant, troubled past had finally forgotten him. Reunited with the woman who had been on his mind since his time in the Elk Fork country, Safford was ready to welcome a few tranquil moments in his wandering life before he climbed back on his horse to continue his westward ride. It was not to be. A tenacious bounty hunter lurked in the shadows and Safford’s own brother, whom he had not seen since they were boys, was suddenly in the crosshairs. Safford was learning the hard way that you can’t outrun your past.
THE BLADEN COLE WESTERNS
Book One: Bladen Cole: Bounty Hunter
Book Two: The Fire of Greed
The Bladen Cole Saga Begins: The year is 1879. Specifically, it is the time of year when the leaves on the cottonwoods have turned golden and are beginning to fall. The sun is low to the horizon and winter is in the air. As the story unfolds, the few flakes that are noticed will become the promise of winter fulfilled. The place is Montana Territory. The story begins in a parlor in Gallatin City, but soon takes us deep into the mountains, across the limitless plains to the jagged Rockies.
Two men, two prominent men, lay murdered by outlaws on the parlor floor. The killers escape into the wilderness and a bounty hunter is called in to bring them to justice. The warrant says “dead or alive,” but the bounty hunter gradually discovers that the only way justice can really be done is for the outlaws to be brought back alive to point their fingers at the man who hired them. This task will prove far more difficult than Bladen Cole could ever have imagined. Cole tracks the outlaws across the mountains to Fort Benton, a nearly lawless outpost on the upper Missouri, and then north of the Marias River into Blackfeet Country. As Cole is reminded, “there is no law north of the Marias.” In this world where time has stood still for centuries, Cole will battle a grizzly with his bare hands, and become embroiled in an intratribal war before he finally captures the outlaws.
Having the outlaws in custody is only the beginnings of his troubles. He kills one for trying to rape a Blackfeet woman whom he had befriended, but he finds himself having to defend the other two from being killed by a series of men who want them — and him — dead. Bladen Cole had realized long ago that he was not the sort of man who was destined to be too long in one place.
Bladen Cole Bounty Hunter is available as an audio book
Fire of Greed is also available as an audio book
A Damned Fine War
A Novel of Alternate History
May 1945: Having defeated Hitler, Josef Stalin sets out to conquer the world with his mighty Red Army. One man stands in his way: General George S. Patton, Jr.
The Winds of War of Alternate History… A young journalist finds herself face to face with a sinister conspiracy to ignite World War III in the ashes of World War II. A young GI finds himself face to face with the unthinkable. They are suddenly caught up in a sweeping drama of global proportions, with global implications as Patton faces off against Josef Stalin and his invincible Red Army.
To sum it up succinctly, A Damned Fine War is A Damned Fine Book! Patton did, indeed, have the intelligence, ability, and capacity for five-star rank. — Charles M. Province, The General George S. Patton, Jr. Historical Society
Bill Yenne’s A Damned Fine War is an action-packed, Patton-size novel. Powerful and compelling, this great read captures the crucial decisions and events associated with the final days of World War II, and more importantly for history, the potential for global domination by one man and one nation. This book, a classic battle between good and evil played out on an international stage, is fast moving and entertaining. Any person interested in history will be properly moved by the what-if scenarios involving victorious armies and men of history. A Damned Fine War also shines as it explores the potentially catastrophic potential at the end of World War II, a titanic struggle that eventually produced a superhero with five stars on a gleaming helmet. A great read. I highly recommend it! — Brian Sobel, Author of The Fighting Pattons
I have always enjoyed counterfactual histories, but good ones are more than just entertainment. Alternative histories can make us think about what might have happened if things had turned out a little differently, and what the consequences would have been. Bill Yenne’s A Damned Fine War succeeds triumphantly on both accounts. It is an excellent read, and offers us some sobering “might have beens.” — Gary Sheffield, Professor of War Studies, University of Birmingham, England
Into the Fire
A Novel of the National Guard in Afghanistan
In this dark, gritty portrayal of Americans at war in Afghanistan, Yenne serves up buckets of blood, gore and tragedy in this not-for-the-squeamish novel about four National Guardsmen sent to fight. Justin is a lazy California surfer dude flunking out of college. Jimmy Ray is a black Georgia auto mechanic suppressing a lot of anger. Luis is a Colorado Hispanic chasing the American dream. And Cindy is an Iowa schoolteacher who never thought she’d be sent to war.
Within days of arriving in Afghanistan, all four are involved in bloody, chaotic combat that will forever change their lives. Justin and Jimmy Ray’s friendship is forged by battle. Luis displays an uncanny talent for tracking the Taliban, and Cindy discovers courage she never knew she had. Three of them make it home, and Yenne offers no tenderness in their homecoming.
Loaded with exciting and graphic battlefield action, Yenne’s portrayal of men and women in combat is authentic down to the smell of explosives and the stink of sweat and fear.— Publishers Weekly
For God and Country
He Was a Man of Faith, Under Fire
A Novel of a US Army Chaplain during the Iraq War by Bill Yenne, writing as Jerome Prescott
There have been a lot of novels about the Iraq war, but none of them have examined the conflict from the perspective of a military chaplain. As you can imagine, this is a tough job at the best of times, but during war it is one of the most indispensable positions in the military.
Sean Rasmussen is one such soldier/pastor. A young minister fresh out of the seminary, he says his time at chaplain school barely prepared him for his first tour of “the sandbox.” Now he is called back to Forward Operating Base Lexington as a replacement for a beloved chaplain who has returned to the States after being gravely wounded in action. As Sean grows into the role on his own, he comforts skeptics and believers alike who need the solace that only he can provide. At the same time he confronts the honors of war and the tragedy of losing those closest to him.
They say there are no atheists in foxholes. But the brutality of war can test the faith of even a U.S. Army Chaplain. Sean is heading for his second tour of Iraq, where he’s stationed with the 69th Brigade Combat Team. They’ve been under fire from the enemy more often than not, they lost their beloved chaplain to an IED attack, and now Sean must find a way to help the troops keep their faith, even as he is undergoing a test of faith in himself, his country —and even the Almighty. But Sean knows in his heart there must be a God, just like he must believe there’s a heaven up there— Because it’s hell down here.
THE RAPTOR FORCE TRILOGY
When there is nowhere else to turn, President Tom Livingstone calls his old friend General Buck Peighton, and from the shadows, Peighton calls on the Raptor Force.
Book One: Raptor Force
“Why can’t somebody stop them!” The woman screamed, breaking into tears as she watched the terror unfolding on the television screen. “I only wish I could,” the man at the end of the bar said, putting down his glass. “I only wish I could.”
America was under attack. The men of the Mujahidin Al-Akhbar were part of a global war that had as its goal the destruction of Western Civilization. The handful of men who formed the Raptor Force were like the brave citizen soldiers at Lexington and Concord more than two centuries before, or Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders. They were a small band that formed the tip of the spear of a people who had finally been pushed too far – and who were ready to push back.
“We’re up against bastards that are fighting dirty, really dirty,” Livingstone told Peighton. “Dontcha think,” Peighton shrugged, “It’s time for the good guys to be fighting dirty back?”
Book Two: Holy Fire
“The Sultan of Brunei is dead. Long live the sultan!” Nobody in the outside world took the new Sultan seriously. Indeed, he was hardly mentioned in the global media, and that was a problem. As with Kim Jong-il, the eccentric playboy potentate of North Korea, it was soon evident that Omar suffered from a deep inferiority complex, and that would be a problem.
Beginning with the kind of chemical attack on an American city that nobody could have expected, the sultan reaches into his arsenal for his nukes.President Thomas Livingstone is cornered. He cannot respond with conventional forces. He must think outside the box. He must call Buck Peighton.
“They’re out there working for you, working for all of us,” Peighton told the president as they met secretly. “They’re out there working to stop the rogues and criminals that think they can strike our homeland with impunity. They’re striking back at the enemy that nobody else can touch.”
Book Three: Corkscrew
For more than a week, Suzanne Harris had been living in a corkscrew tunnel into the depths of a rabbit hole worthy of Lewis Carroll’s most insane fantasies. The young journalist had promised to protect her sources – including the man who’d saved her life twice – but the main reason that she could not write her unbelievable story was, simply put, nobody would believe it! At last, unimpeachable documentary proof of an even more astonishing intrigue was within her grasp. All she had to do was reach out and take it.
President Livingstone is in Brussels on a whirlwind tour of Europe and the First Lady is on a routine meet and greet, when suddenly her world, and that of her husband, was turned upside down. The news channels interrupted with breaking news… The wife of the president of the United States had just been kidnapped!
But, as only a few came to know, she had not been taken for ransom. What the media screamed to be the crime of the decade is merely a cover for an even bigger crime that is about to come. General Buckley Peighton, the president’s only link to his Raptor Force, lies unconscious in a hospital bed – and someone is coming down the hall. A little more morphine will help him rest…