Texas Tracker #5

JUSTICE IN BIG SPRING 
as by Tom Calhoun

Jove, November 2004

Nearly two years have passed between book four in the series and this being published, so I was interested to see if the series would take off again or disappear like has happened with other series such as Wildgun and Fury, both of which also had long gaps in their publishing history.

This book also sees a new author writing under the name of Tom Calhoun, John Legg. Any new author will bring his own style to a series and here it's J.T.'s choice of words that are a little different, and that his horse now has a name, which if memory serves wasn't the case in the previous four books.

But what of the book itself?

J.T. Law, a bounty hunter, working in Texas comes to the help of an old friend Sheriff McCracken. Kuykendall’s gang is running riot in Howard County but getting evidence on the gang is almost impossible, no citizen has lived to testify against them. Now there’s a new witness and McCracken wants J.T. to keep him alive until the judge arrives.

The book has a fairly straight forward plot with little in the way of surprises or plot twists. It’s well written and has a large body count, in fact the latter part of the book just moves from one gunfight to another rapidly. J.T. finding himself taking on eight gunmen alone at one time, providing some exciting reading. Women have minor roles in this entry into the Texas Tracker series.

In conclusion this book was a satisfying and entertaining read and only time will tell how much further the series will get.