Thursday 14 August 2008

Lone Star #15

Lone Star and the Mexican Standoff
as by Wesley Ellis
Jove, October 1983

This series features a female lead, Jessica Starbuck and her bodyguard Ki, a series that ran for 153 books. Later on I feel the series became a bit hit and miss in quality but most of the earlier books strike home well, and this one is no exception.

A cutthroat gang is carving out a reign of terror along the Mexican border. And they’re also headed toward Purgatory Gorge with a load of dynamite that’ll blow the Congressional train from Washington sky high. But the renegades don’t know that Jessie Starbuck and her faithful companion, Ki, will be following close behind to snuff out the fireworks and make good on a personal debt that’s long overdue…

In this tale Jessie and Ki become involved with a Mexican rebel army attempting to overthrow President Diaz. Seems the rebels are hiding out in America. Representatives from both Mexico and America are to meet and team up in tackling this problem. Jessie is representing Texas.

The action comes thick and fast from the first page with assassination attempts, two kidnappings and a massacre all happening in the first thirty or so pages. And it doesn’t let up there as Jessie and Ki fight to stop the Congressional train being destroyed and everyone on her killed.

Along with the bandits they have land hungry ranchers and double-cross to deal with in their race against time. Not only that the Cartel is involved too, and a man they thought dead, a man fought a number of times before, is back!

Well worth checking out.

The writer behind the pseudonym of Wesley Ellis this time is Jeffrey M. Wallmann.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I've got this book and have read it several times - a very good read. You are right about the series being a bit up and down in quality; this was a consistently good story right through.