Texas Rules

as by Jack Curtis

Pocket Books, 1991

Back from the Civil War Cotton Dunbar finds the graves of his wife and son and his ranch in disrepair. He decides to stay and gets a loan on the land and sets about rebuilding. Soon he, and other ranchers in the area are offered good money for their cattle if they can get them to Abilene.

The first two thirds of this book cover that outlined above, and the cattle drive. In this part of the book the author offers nothing new, a routine cattle drive read many times before, rustlers, stampedes, swollen rivers etc. etc.

But then comes the twist on arrival at Abilene that makes this book a worth while read, and no I’m not going to give it away here other than say it’s a time for a man to stand up for what’s right which leads to action a-plenty, quite brutal at times.

The writing style took me a while to get into, maybe clipped sentences is the best way to describe it. Also some of the dialogue seemed a tad dated which was to be expected as the back cover blurb says the author wrote for TV series such as Gunsmoke and Have Gun Will Travel.

The twist to the tale makes this a book well worth looking out for.

Get a copy here.