Mason Hawke had success, fame, respect. Then war made him a murderer – and left him scarred in the worst possible way. Haunted by a past as black as the depths of Perdition, Hawke’s looking for a place to start over, to disappear. And Salcedo is just a stop along the trail. A small piece of Hell in Texas, it’s a town once run by outlaws and now ruthlessly bullied by a mob that’s twice as bad, though they call themselves “lawmen.” And the top dog’s a man who was once Hawke’s childhood friend.
Mason Hawke wants no part of small frontier-town civil war. One’s brewing here, and there’ll be no way to stay neutral – especially when conscience and a killer force his hand. But doing the right thing could expose the past Hawke’s so desperate to hide – and even dying might be a preferable fate . . .
Robert Vaughan came up with an interesting hero for this five-book series. Mason Hawke is an accomplished pianist. He’s toured Europe and is internationally recognized as one of the best. But he put all that fame and fortune on hold as he felt the need to return to America to fight in the Civil War. A conflict that taught him another skill, one he became extremely good at – killing. After that war he became a drifter, going from town to town earning his way playing piano in various saloons, which is why he ended up in Salcedo.
The story contains flashbacks to the war, to Hawke’s childhood. It’s not only Hawke who has to deal with a violent past. Flaire Delaney, who might be a romantic interest for Hawke, has her own demons to deal with. It’s also her brother that Hawke finds hanging from a tree and whose body he brings into town against the wishes of those who hanged him, which is the start of the troubles Hawke will have to deal with.
Vaughan also includes a real person in part of the book that strengthens how well-known Hawke is in the music world. Hawke takes Flaire to see a concert given by the American composer, pianist and virtuoso performer, Louis Moreau Gottschalk. Hawke and Flaire are taken backstage to Gottschalk’s dressing room where Flaire discovers the two men know each other very well. But it’s what is happening in Salcedo at the same time that will have violent repercussions for all involved.
The story is told at a fast pace and includes some fairly horrific scenes. Vaughan switches between characters regularly as the tale unfolds in ever increasing tension before everything erupts in an explosive and gripping climax that could see Hawke’s childhood friend, Culpepper, and his band of Regulators get their comeuppance.
I own, and have read, a lot of books written by Robert Vaughan, either under his own name or pseudonyms, and have yet to find one that I haven’t enjoyed. Ride with the Devil is right up there with the best of his work and has left me wanting to read the next book in the series as soon as I can.
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