Trail of Death

as by G.J. Morgan

Futura, 1975

According to the back blurb this is the first in a series about Buck Dunne, bounty hunter... but to my knowledge there aren’t anymore.

Dunne drives some outlaws off his ranch as they are attempting to steal his stock. He kills one of them in the process. Unknown to him this dead man is the brother of the outlaw gang’s leader. While Dunne is in town the gang return and kill Dunne’s wife, son and partner.

This leads to Dunne swearing revenge, at first he’s content to let the law attempt to bring the gang to justice but as they continue to fail in this task Dunne heads out to do the job himself.

The outlaw leader is hunting for Dunne too; he wants Dunne dead for killing his brother.

So a tale of two vengeance driven men, the story alternating between the two as they plan each others demise.

G.J. Morgan (Donald S. Rowland) gives us some interesting characters, I particularly liked seeing Dunne begin to realize the truth about himself, after discovering the deaths of his family, in that he was as capable of being as cold-hearted and as brutal as the men he was hunting.

Fairly formula western with the added touch of the outlaw wanting revenge too.