VENGEANCE TRAIL

VENGEANCE TRAIL
By Bill Brooks
Leisure Books, January 2009

Johnny Montana has racked up a lot of enemies in his days as a gambler, road agent and killer. And it seems the law has finally caught up with him. Shooting a U.S. senator was the last straw. But it’s a long way across Indian Territory to get Johnny to “Hanging” Judge Parker. And plenty of others are looking to exact their own vengeance. The Biggs boys have given up their successful hog farm to hunt down the man who shot their father between the eyes. Eli Stagg, a hard, cruel tracker, has been hired by the senator’s family to make sure their own version of justice is done. And the Comanche will kill just about anyone on their land.

With all hell about to break loose across the roughest territory in the state, Texas Ranger Henry Dollar is the only one who can prevent an utter bloodbath – if he can stay alive long enough himself.

Although the blurb seems to indicate that Henry Dollar is the central character in this book he isn’t. Neither is anyone else. The story switches regularly between those mentioned above, and more, as it builds in intensity. This allows the author to flesh out his characters, explaining their reasons for hunting Montana, sharing the emotions that drive them. As death and injury befall them, I soon began to wonder if any of them would be alive at the end.

Brooks’ descriptions of time and place are well written and the action scenes are hard hitting. His characters are memorable, both good and bad. Although the story has a pretty straight-forward plot Brooks tells it in a compelling way that makes the book difficult to put down until the end is reached. 

Having read other books by Brooks that all had a dark tone throughout I was surprised to find this one didn’t. This means it should appeal to a wider readership – those who don’t like too much graphic violence, explicit sex, or depressing themes in their reading. 

I found Vengeance Trail to be an enjoyable read and I’m now wondering where my other yet to read books by Bill Brooks are as I was left wanting to read more of his work soon.

Ghost Towns

Edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Russell Davis

Pinnacle, July 2010

The sound of a crowed saloon… The cry of a train coming through the night… The pounding of horses ridden by friends or foe… From the searing sun to snow-steeped winters, towns called Sentinel, Iron Mountain and St. Elmo stood strong and fierce – before they finally died.

From a soldier on the run from the fires of war… From a gambler who has long since played his last hand to a solitary, singing rifle man protecting a besieged town… With dreamers and schemers, with men and women of courage, conscience and faith – here is a collection of adventures that see these ghost towns return to life.

Contents:

The Water Indian by Steve Hockensmith

The Ghosts of Duster by William W. Johnstone, with J.A. Johnstone

St. Elmo in Winter by Margaret Coel

Mr. Kennedy’s Bones by Johnny D. Boggs

Gunfight at Los Muretos by Bill Brooks

Iron Mountain by Candy Moulton

The Defense of Sentinel by Louis L’Amour

Paradise Springs by Sandy Whiting

Silent Hill by Larry D. Sweazy

End of the Line by Lori Van Pelt

The Town That Wouldn’t Quit by Deborah Morgan

Now We Are Seven by Loren D. Estleman

Contention City, 1951 by Jeff Mariotte

The Ghost of Two Forks by Elmer Kelton

Kiowa Canyon by James A. Fischer

This anthology brings together a fine selection of tales that are all extremely well written; all offering elements of the supernatural thus blending the western with ghost stories. Like any collection I have my favourites and there are a couple I wasn’t sure about – in fact there was one I gave up on. Not all the stories are set in the Old West, some are set right up to the present day, although these do have links to the past.

Most of the authors above will be familiar to western readers and fans of the Johnstone books should be pleased to discover that the story The Ghosts of Duster features Bo Creel and Scratch Morton from the Sidewinders series. Similarly fans of Steve Hockensmith’s two would be detectives, Big Red and Old Red from his excellent Holmes on the Range series should be equally pleased to find another story about them here.

I’ve always found it disappointing that the editors and/or publishers of anthologies like this feel the need to include yet another, already widely published, story by Louis L’Amour. The only reason I can see for doing this is hoping his name will help sell more copies of the book. L’Amour’s story, as expected, is well told and is in fact one of my favourites in the collection, but it is the tale that doesn’t quite fit in with the theme of ghost towns as well, if at all, as the others.

Other than wanting to read all the work I can by authors I enjoy, the main reason I read anthologies is to try writers that are new to me, or those I’ve been meaning to try for some time. And, as should be the case, I know have a longer list of authors I want to explore further.

The Stone Garden

The Epic Life of Billy the Kid
By Bill Brooks
Forge – first edition June 2001
First mass market edition, October 2002

The White Sands Region, New Mexico, 1908. It is twenty-seven years after the alleged death of Billy the Kid and rumours abound throughout New Mexico and the United States that the Kid is still alive. Those who believe him dead, are labelling the Kid’s killer, Pat Garrett, a traitor. While Sheriff Garrett expected a hero’s reception for his assassination of William H. Bonney, alias, The Kid, Garrett has become the most despised man in the state. Instead, assassins are now lining up to gun him down. Garrett watched the kid’s exploits become the stuff of legend, of dime novels and myth. And the myth continues that the Kid is alive. When an assassin’s bullet finds Garrett, many secrets go to the grave with him. Among those secrets is the identity of his own killer.

Bill Brooks has written this book in the first person, the story told through the voice of Billy The Kid for the main part, although later he tells part of the tale as Manuella, which makes for some fascinating different points-of-view of events in the story.

The story also moves from its present to the past and back again at regular intervals; one minute you are reading memories of a dead person, the next they are alive. You’d have thought all this jumping around in time would make for confusing reading but it doesn’t, it helps add interest as you don’t know where the story will take you next.

The whole book has a very dark tone as it’s filled with many reflections on dying, on depression, on sadness, and the dead. Having said that Bill Brooks does insert many moments of humour too; such as the river that washes away graves to send coffins and their contents to new resting places.

In the Stone Garden Bill Brooks has really come up with a very memorable, and moving, book and in doing so has added to the many myths surrounding Billy the Kid and his death at the hands of Pat Garrett. This is definitely a book that will stick in the mind for a long time, for not only being entertaining but thought provoking too.

Read more about Billy the Kid here (the Tainted Archive)

Dakota Lawman #3

THE BIG GUNDOWN

by Bill Brooks

HarperTorch, October2005

The third, and probably last, book in the Dakota Lawman series, as Harper seem to have stopped publishing westerns.

Jake Horn is still hiding behind the badge of lawman in the Dakota town of Sweet Sorrow and his discovery of a dead ranch hand is soon bringing his demons home. Jake recognizes a murder when he sees one but asking too many questions of the wrong people is asking for trouble, and suddenly expert killers are gathering with their sights on the lawman. As the big gundown approaches Jake finds there's nowhere to hide when five shooters blinded by hate won't leave Sweet Sorrow until he's dead.

Unlike the previous two books in this series, Bill Brooks gives some of his characters hope, gives them something to live for – even if this could soon be taken away with a bullet.

Most of the people from the earlier books have a part to play in this story of brutality and savage death. The killing at the beginning being particularly horrific and will have the reader hoping the perpetrators will meet an equally savage end.

Bill Brooks also includes other adult themes such as homosexuals in both sexes. In fact the female lovers have a major role to play in the life of a gunman hunting Horn for a long ago killing he didn't commit.

Like his other books Brooks spends quite a bit of time introducing us to new characters and explaining their backgrounds, how they came to be the kind of person they are, which at times I felt held up the main flow of the story.

The book – indeed the trilogy of books – comes to a satisfactory ending here, and once more I'd recommend this series to readers who like the more brutal – in theme and action - type of western.

Dakota Lawman #2

KILLING MR. SUNDAY

by Bill Brooks

HarperTorch, June 2005

This is the second Dakota Lawman book.

Jake Horn was on the dodge for a crime he didn't commit. The town of Sweet Sorrow took him in and rewarded him with a badge he never wanted. Still, this out-of-the-way Dakota hellhole is a good place for a man to get lost in. Then William Sunday arrives, he's suffering from an illness that will soon claim his life and he's determined to reconcile with his daughter before his body does him in – or the band of bounty hunters hot on his trail. Then there's the man who killed his wife and children, a man Horn must bring to justice…

The title and blurb for this book are a bit misleading in that they indicate that William Sunday is the main storyline of this tale; in fact the hunt for the man who kills his family and it's effects on other people are the major storylines of this book.

The idea of Sunday dying of cancer can't help but bring comparisons to John Wayne's last film, The Shootist.

Bill Brooks manages to create a strong depressing atmosphere to the town of Sweet Sorrow, a backdrop for his, mainly, sad characters to act out their miserable lives. Brooks spends a lot of time explaining his characters past lives and following events that bring them to Sweet Sorrow – such as a wagon load of saloon girls.

Action comes at regular intervals and is often described in all its brutal violence and the reader has to wonder how many of the stories characters will be alive at the end of the book.

Like the first book in this series I felt it would have been better a little shorter, but even so Killing Mr. Sunday is a gripping read and is worth a look by any fan of the western genre if you like the harder, grittier approach to your reading material.

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.