The Trailsman #323

 WYOMING DEATH TRAP

as by Jon Sharpe

Signet, September 2008

In the wilds of Wyoming, Skye Fargo is working to protect local stagecoach trails from roving gangs of robbers. Then his wealthy employer, Andrew Lund, asks him to take a more personal job. Lund thinks his young wife is stepping out with another man, and he wants Fargo to find out the truth. Throw in Lund’s not-so-demure daughter, and a boomtown full of gunslinging gutter rats, and the Trailsman has a case he might not walk away from.

If you’re expecting an action packed read from this entry in the Trailsman series then you maybe disappointed, it does contain some gun-action but nowhere near as much as many Trailsman books. What it does have is lots of suspense, lots of well-drawn characters, and plenty of suspects in the murder of Andrew Lund’s wife – yes she’s killed shortly after Fargo begins investigating her.

The author soon has Fargo and the reader suspicious of everyone; Andrew Lund himself, and the many men it seems his wife was cheating on him with. And what of Lund’s daughter from his first marriage, could she be guilty?

The book reads like a murder mystery with Fargo playing the reluctant detective and proves to be a gripping tale. I found it difficult to put the book down until I’d discovered whom the guilty party was.

Of course I’m not going to reveal the identity of the murderer here. That is something you’ll have to find out for yourself whilst enjoying this finely crafted book.