Lone Star #17

LONE STAR AND THE SAN ANTONIO RAID

as by Wesley Ellis

Jove, December 1983

Doc Holliday…Clay Allison…John Harrow…and two hundred more of the West’s worst badmen had gathered in a secret riverside camp – and the cartel that had always menaced the Starbucks was behind it somehow. Their lives in danger every minute, Ki and Jessie go in disguised as a cook and a whore. They find enough bandits to knock off a whole city…but they still don’t know where the raiders will strike…

It is such a shame that the covers to this series give the impression of the books being of the western romance type rather than the tough action filled reads that they really are.

This entry into the series was written by Neal Barrett Jr. and he provides a fast moving and gripping read. The book jumps between Jessie and Ki’s struggles to discover who is behind the outlaw gathering and its purpose.

There are many superbly drawn characters and a shocking revelation at the end to the identity of one. There are plenty of red-herrings too as to the target, which the author keeps secret until he’s ready to reveal it, (although this is given away by the books’ title – why do they do that?). Towards the end the book becomes a race against time which ends in a brutal and bloody battle.

Definitely one of the best Lone Star books I’ve read.