Joseph Kane

Police detective Roy Hargis falls for night club singer Ilona Vance, but his partner Sgt. Lackey is convinced she fatally shot mob lawyer Frank Hobart. Hargis has his doubts, until he learns that Ilona once owned the murder weapon. After gangland lawyer Frank Hobart is murdered there are two suspects - Ilona Vance , beautiful nightclub singer, and a hood named Stan, who had been hired by underworld boss Chad Bayliss to kill Hobart. Attracted to Ilona, Lt. Detective Roy Hargis tries to protect her in spite of the growing evidence against her and the pressure put on him by his assistant, Sergeant Lackey. Hargis thinks the case has broken when a dance hall girl, Sandra Lamoreaux, who saw Stan at the scene of the murder, tries to use this information to blackmail him, and is badly beaten. She manages to talk to Hargis, and her story brings about Stan's capture and conviction for murder. But he didn't do it. It is now up to Hargis to either clear or convict Ilona. —Les Adams <longhorn1939@suddenlink.net>

In 1883, an American merchant ship's captain is searching for a treasure in diamonds from a sunken Dutch ship in the vicinity of a volcanic island in the Dutch East Indies. The Dutch East Indies, at the end of the nineteenth century. An adventurous captain of an American merchant vessel is looking for a sunken Dutch vessel containing 10,000 precious diamonds. Unfortunately, he's not the only one and then there's also that volcano on the nearby island of Krakatau, waiting to explode in its historical, disastrous eruption... —Homme A. Piest <piest@pobox.leidenuniv.nl>

Feud between the long-established stagecoach and steamship lines and the emergent railway companies trying to expand into the Midwest. Loumas, president of the Rock Island Trail company, tries to expand his rails into the Midwest but finds resistance of the steamship and stage-coach lines. The malicious Kirby Murrow tries everything to slow down Loumas' progress and doesn't even stop before sabotage. Only Constanze, daughter of banker Strong, believes in his success strong enough to support him financially. —Tom Zoerner <Tom.Zoerner@informatik.uni-erlangen.de>

Cavalry officer John Drum attempts to track down outlaw Whit Lacey, but finds he must join forces with Lacey to fight a Sioux war party. In the 1870s, fugitive outlaw Johnny Drum is confronted by Sheriff Sam Borden inside a general store. Drum shoots the sheriff in front of customers Lin Conner and Julie Ann McCabe. The two women are saloon dancers and Julie happens to be the girlfriend of another wanted outlaw, Whit Lacey. He's wanted for raiding Eben Martin's mining operations. After escaping the town, Drum takes to the trail where he's followed by the sheriff deputies and their posse. He manages to elude them but he's attacked by a band of Sioux. Fortunately, Drum is aided in the ensuing firefight by bandit Whit Lacey who happened by. The two outlaws become friends and partners. They plan various robbery schemes. Lacey needs the money to move to California with his sweetheart, Julie Ann McCabe. Unknown to Lacey, Drum actually is an undercover army officer who only pretended to kill the town sheriff in order to create a cover story in his quest to find and apprehend Lacey. Eventually, Lacey finds out the truth about Drum but allows him to leave their hideout unharmed. Later, Drum and the town's deputies capture Lacey and take him to the nearest army fort. They want Lacey tried but some angry citizens at the fort want to lynch him, despite Drum's fierce opposition. The lynching is interrupted by a major Sioux attack on the fort. Now, they all have to forget their differences and defend the fort until reinforcements arrive. Drum and Lacey find themselves fighting, once more, side by side. —nufs68

In 1871 Dakota, two crooked businessmen oppose the local wheat farmers and the railroad development to control the town of Fargo. In 1871, professional gambler John Devlin elopes with Sandra "Sandy" Poli, daughter of Marko Poli, an immigrant who has risen to railroad tycoon. Sandy, knowing that the railroad is to be extended into Dakota, plans to use their $20,000 nest egg to buy land options to sell to the railroad at a profit. On the stage trip to Ft. Abercrombie, their fellow passengers are Jim Bender and Bigtree Collins, who practically own the town of Fargo, and Devlin is aware that they are prepared to protect the little empire: trying to drive out the farmers by burning their property, destroying their wheat, and blaming the devastation on the Indians. Continuing their journey north on the river aboard the "River Bird', Sandy and John meet irascible old seafarer Captain Bounce. Two of Bender's henchmen, Slagin and Carp, board the boat and relieve John of his $20,000 at gunpoint. Captain Bounce, chasing the robber's dinghy, wrecks his boat on a sandbar. At Fargo, the land wars begin and John teams with the wheat farmers against the Bender gang. Several attempts are made on his life and Collins tries to frame him for murder. —Les Adams <longhorn1939@suddenlink.net> John Devlin helps Dakota wheat farmers save their land from swindling entrepeneurs who hope to make a fortune selling it to the railroad for its right-of-way. —Jim Beaver <jumblejim@prodigy.net>

A cowboy competes with a gambling tycoon on the Barbary Coast for the hand of a beautiful dance-hall queen. Duke falls for Flaxen in the Barbary Coast in turn-of-the-century San Francisco. He loses money to crooked gambler Tito, goes home and PL: learns to gamble, and returns. After he makes a fortune he opens his own place with Flaxen as the entertainer. The 1906 quake destroys his place. —Ed Stephan <stephan@cc.wwu.edu> Montana cowboy Duke Fergus travels to 1906 San Francisco to collect a debt from Tito Morell who runs a place on the dodgy Barbary Coast. Though he heads home after losing the money to Morell's card-sharping, Duke takes a crash course on card play and returns with all his savings ready to take on Morell and start up his own place. A lot of this is due to Morell's woman Flaxen whom Duke has fallen for. The earth may soon be moving for him in quite dramatic ways. —Jeremy Perkins {J-26}

The mayor has sent for a gunslinger who, though appearing to clean up the town, is really to be the mayor's means of taking the town over. When Roy and Gabby arrive in Tombstone, Roy is mistaken for the gunslinger. Just as Roy is ready to expose the mayor, the real gunslinger shows up. —Ed Stephan <stephan@cc.wwu.edu>

Roy and Gabby have to establish fair business practices in the town of Deadwood, currently dominated by entrepreneurs who scare off potential competitors. Deadwood is controlled by Ripper's gang that has rendered the Sheriff and the Judge powerless. When Gabby's medicine show featuring Roy arrives they are quickly run out. They join the Laramie Gap gang that is fighting Ripper and when Gabby's inheritance money is stolen they rob the stage to get it back, Getting the money and the names assigned to it, Roy hopes this evidence will enable the Judge to bring law and order to Deadwood. —Maurice VanAuken <mvanauken@a1access.net>

Bill Hickok, assisted by Calamity Jane, is after a foreign agent and his guerrilla band who are trying to take over some Western territory just as the Civil War is coming to a close. Bill Hickok in his early pre-gunslinger years as a freight-line agent protecting a gold shipment from villains out to steal gold and land out west while America is diverted by the Civil War back East. With the help of Calamity Jane and her horse-trader uncle Hickok battles the bad guys while trying to win the love of his life, Louise, in a formulaic B-Western adventure with songs. —Dale Roloff

When nasty land developers try to bilk honest ranchers who don't know their land holds lots of gold, Gene puts a stop to it. Scanlon is pulling off a land swindle by selling lots in a ghost town claiming that the power company is bringing in a line. As a bonus he throws in shares in a worthless gold mine. Gene is on to Scanlon and tries to get him to buy back the deeds by salting the mine with gold. But when a new vein is really discovered, Gene has to stop the sales but is trapped in the mine by Scanlon's men. —Maurice VanAuken <mvanauken@a1access.net>

Flagg is relocating flood victims to Gunsmoke Ranch. The Three Mesquiteers know Flagg to be a crook and try to warn them. They ignore the warning and improve the land only to find that it has been condemned for a new dam. During the Great Depression, when natural catastrophes including floods destroy the homes of thousands,.crooked, con man Phineas Flagg buys up all the ranches in Arizona's Gunsmoke Valley at the bargain price of $2 per acre. The displaced families are only too happy to buy what Flagg misrepresents as 40 acres of prime farmland per family at the bargain price of $50 an acre. What he doesn't tell the migrants is that the entire area has been condemned under the law of eminent domain and will soon be flooded for the construction of a new dam. The group's leader, Judge Warren, initially disregards the Mesquiteers' warnings that they're being conned,, but Stony' romances his beautiful granddaughter Marion,, and the settlers accept the Mesquiteers' help,, but is it too late? —duke1029

Though he fought for the North in the Civil War, John is asked by the Governor of Texas to get rid of some troublesome carpetbaggers. He enlists the help of Holden before learning that Holden too is plundering the local folk. Ex-Union officer John Ashley returns to his hometown in Texas and finds law and order being maintained by northerner Benedict Holden's armed troopers. Initially taken in by Holden's smooth talk, Ashley soon discovers Holden is a carpetbagger who, unbeknownst by the governor, is killing and stealing from the locals under cover of state authority. Hoping to thwart Holden's ongoing attacks against the citizens, Ashley enlists in Holden's troops. —Doug Sederberg <vornoff@sonic.net>

A lonely husband whose wife has been away hires a lookalike impersonator to fill his place and fool his mother-in-law while he plays around with a pretty coquette. Confusion prevails when his wife returns that evening.