Dakota Lawman #1

 LAST STAND AT SWEET SORROW
by Bill Brooks

HarperTorch, Feb. 2005

This the first in a new series about Jake Horn, a healer, now falsely accused of murder.

Sweet Sorrow is filled with misfits, drunks, gamblers and dreamers. The perfect town for Jake to get lost in. But a strange plague of madness, brutality and murder runs rampant - and a slippery Texan named Roy Bean is pressuring Jake to become the town Marshal. Unknown to Jake a famous bounty hunter is tracking him down to collect the substantial reward for bringing Jake Horn in stone cold dead!

Bill Brooks writes a good book filled with interesting people, many who have a troubled past. Occasionally I thought the need to tell us about his characters past bordered on the long side, seemed a bit like padding, particularly when the same ground was covered in two different peoples backgrounds. One thing that came over well was a sense of sadness for all the characters; they all seemed to be those dreamers mentioned earlier.

The violence is brutal and shocking at times. The madness driving people to the edge, and beyond, of insanity. The question of what was causing these violent acts hooked me from the beginning, kept me reading to find out the answer. At one point it seemed as if there would not be anyone living by the end.

My first book by this author and it wont be my last.