About
Rex Canyon is a veteran journalist whose career spans decades in the fast-paced world of newspapers. A lifelong student of history and lover of the myths and legends of the Old West, Canyon brings grit, danger, moral conflict, and frontier justice to his historical western fiction.
His debut novel, Blood on the Cards, portrays a deadly three-fingered gambler who is either settling old scores or trying to outrun one.
On October 1, 2025, Canyon launched the ten-part Coldiron series through Dusty Saddle Publishing. He has since added Gold and the Judgment of Babylon, Covenant of Greed, and Crucible on the Llano Estacado to the series. The next Coldiron novel, The Reckoning of Outlaw Ham White of the Lost Pines, is scheduled for a mid-July 2026 release.
Before turning to fiction, Canyon built a distinguished career in sports journalism after beginning his working life in restaurant management at age 18. He is also a former professional pianist and violist and co-wrote the music and lyrics for the Easter musical Spread the News. His wide-ranging interest in history includes presidential history, Winston Churchill, the Great War, World War II, and the aircraft his father flew during the European campaign.
Today, Canyon draws on a lifetime of reporting, research, music, memory, and historical curiosity to write westerns rooted in character, consequence, and the enduring myths of the American frontier.
Featured Work
Timber & Coldiron: Crucible on the Llano Estacado
United States Marshal Timber has already caught Charles Reed once.
After the Beehive Saloon erupts in gunfire in January 1877, three men lie dead in Fort Griffin. Timber captures Reed in San Antonio, but a clerical error leads to his release, and Reed flees into the Llano Estacado—thirty-seven thousand square miles of wind-burned emptiness void of trees, landmarks, and water.
Timber follows, but isn't alone. Texas Ranger Jesse Coldiron Newton, coming out of Fort Griffin, joins the chase and they cover a region flat as judgment and merciless as drought, where pursuit becomes a duel not just with an outlaw, but with thirst, distance, and the erosion of a man’s will.
During the hunt, Timber and Coldiron learn that catching Reed is only part of the fight. Surviving the Llano is the other.
Based on a true story, Robert Hanlon and Rex Canyon deliver a stark and powerful frontier novel about law, endurance, and the cost of unfinished business on the high plains of Texas.
