The Trailhead
Welcome to The Trailhead.
Every journey starts somewhere. For hikers, hunters, and wanderers, it starts at a trailhead: the place where the pavement ends, the map gets folded, and the real adventure begins.
I chose that name because stories work much the same way. A good book is a trail into unfamiliar country. It might lead across a windswept Montana ridge, down a dusty Indiana back road, through a mystery, a manhunt, or a place where danger waits just beyond the next bend.
This website is my trailhead. It is where readers can discover new books, follow upcoming releases, read behind-the-scenes stories from the writing life, and join me on the journey.
So grab a cup of coffee, look around, and pick a trail. There are plenty of stories waiting down the road.
THE FRONTIER SERIES
Danny Coogan is now working as a US Marshal, and he is within weeks of becoming a father for the first time. In Frontier Bounty he makes a grisly discovery: a body, and it’s the son of someone he knows and works with. Thus begins an off-the-books investigation that leads him to millions of dollars in stolen money, an entire collection of dead bodies, and an ultimate showdown with an adversary determined not to be taken alive.
A NEW SERIES
Ben Perkins wanted a quiet life. Bees. Honey. A rundown farm in rural Indiana and enough isolation to avoid people asking questions about his military record or his failed marriage.
It was going pretty well right up until somebody tried to shoot him in his own field.
Darkly funny, lean, and loaded with sharp dialogue and sudden violence, The Beekeeper’s Bad Day blends rural noir, deadpan humor, and hard-edged suspense into a thriller where everybody is lying, nobody is safe, and the beekeeper may be the last man anyone should have cornered.
The American Collection
ON AMAZON AND KINDLE
The American Collection: Stories of Grit, Resilience, and Reckoning
Out on the back roads and county lines, trouble doesn’t announce itself—it just shows up and waits. The American Collection is a powerful gathering of short fiction that captures the raw, unfiltered lives of ordinary Americans pushed to extraordinary moments. From the mountains of Afghanistan to the quiet farms of Indiana, from roadside diners to forgotten towns, Michael Cardwell writes with a voice that is both unflinching and deeply human.
Perfect for fans of Craig Johnson, C.J. Box, and Elmore Leonard, The American Collection delivers stories as rugged and real as the country they come from. Because sometimes the smallest moments leave the deepest scars.
My Story
After thirty-two years of service in the United States Army, I traded the discipline of military life for the craft of storytelling. I studied creative writing at Indiana University, where I began publishing poetry, short fiction, and novellas in literary journals and magazines.
Today I write full-time from Indiana, where my days revolve around strong coffee, enthusiastic dogs, and keeping up with eight energetic grandchildren. My stories are rooted in the landscapes, communities, and characters of rural America.
I am the author of the popular Frontier Series, including Frontier Justice, Frontier Outlaws, Frontier Marshal, Frontier Vengeance, and Frontier Bounty. Blending Western grit with modern crime and mystery, the series has earned strong reader ratings and a growing audience of fans who enjoy the work of Craig Johnson, C. J. Box, and other writers of rural suspense.
If you enjoy stories about determined lawmen, dangerous frontiers, and the fight for justice in the wide-open American West, start with Frontier Justice and join thousands of readers already riding along.
