CANYON O’GRADY
Book 14 of 25
COLONEL DEATH
By Jon Sharpe
Cover art by Jerome Podwil
Signet Books, July 1991
Canyon O’Grady had his gun hands full of trouble. U.S. Cavalry Colonel Judson Kilgore had led renegade troops out of Texas and down south of the border. O’Grady was sent as a one-man army to stop the kill-crazy colonel and his crew from carving out an empire of evil. Even worse, the big redheaded U.S. special agent also had a bevy of bloodthirsty banditos, a lost confederate colony, and an explosive spitfire to deal with. All O’Grady could do was give it his best shot – again and again and again…
Set in 1868, this story sees O’Grady having to face near unsurmountable odds. A lot of the book sees the author telling us of the atrocities Colonel Kilgore, soon to be known as Colonel Death, was carrying out and tells of men flocking to join his ever-growing army. How can one man, O’Grady, take on over one hundred men?
As O’Grady travels into Mexico, he finds himself following a trail of corpses and ransacked towns. The locals are weary of Americans and O’Grady has to defend himself from those who assume he’s one of Kilgore’s men.
Eventually O’Grady meets Mercedes, a young woman who has seen her father and brothers die at the hand of Kilgore. She wants revenge and insists she will accompany O’Grady on his mission. O’Grady doesn’t want her along, but circumstances see her join him. Of course, she’s very attractive and O’Grady enjoys some explicit action with her.
The final showdown is fast-paced and takes place over a few skirmishes and the defence of and an attack on a fortified town.
Jon Sharpe is a pseudonym. Book twelve saw Chet Cunningham stop writing for the series (he’d written all but three of the previous books up to then). Book thirteen saw a new author come on board and I believe this book, number fourteen, is yet another new writer. I’m not sure who it is but I have seen it mentioned that it was Mark K. Roberts. I’m not familiar enough with his writing to confirm whether this is true or not.
Colonel Death is a longer story than the previous book. Not in page length but in the size of the print and that the chapters start a few lines down from the end of the previous one rather than on the next page. To be honest I did feel the story rambled a bit at times, especially during the first half or so, but it still held my attention as I wanted to find out how O’Grady would succeed in his mission. The story is very straight-forward with little in the way of twists. Overall, I found this book to be an ok read.
