Incident at River Bend

By Lee Lejeune

Hale, June 2014

When Steve Carrington, the sheriff of River Bend, saves a young and desperate thief from a lynch mob, he is content to send the kid packing with his life intact. However when a mysterious army sergeant arrives, fresh out of jail for armed robbery, tension in the town builds.

Wesley Carradine is convinced the sergeant is sitting on a pile of loot the authorities never found and sends his private henchmen to investigate. All the while, however, with the help of a company of bandits, Carradine is organizing a more devious ploy that will really turn the town on its head.

Avarice, honour and the battle for supremacy fuel the saga that ensues, as the actions of a greedy few take a grip on the town.

I’ve read a couple of Lee Lejeune’s Black Horse Westerns before and they turned out to be thoroughly entertaining reads and Incident at River Bend is equally so.

Lee Lejeune includes many great characters in this twisting story that is filled with questions about their relationships, their true agendas, and the whereabouts of the missing loot – if this exists. All these, and more, prove to be powerful hooks that grabbed my attention and ensured I kept reading until I discovered the answers. For those who like action, there’s plenty of that too.

Like other Lejeune westerns this one contains a number of strong female roles and it would seem that events surrounding the sergeant and Carradine could just make or break Carrington’s relationship with one of them.

The story builds well to a showdown involving a stagecoach and a hotel standoff that brings everything to a satisfying and exciting end that left me looking forward to Lee Lejeune’s next book.

Incident at River Bend at Amazon.com

Incident at River Bend (Black Horse Western) at Amazon.co.uk