Dead Man's Guns

as by Logan Winters

A Black Horse Western from Hale, January 2010

The killer Frank Lavender was dead, so how could it be that he was involved in a gunfight at Hoyt’s Camp, a logging town along Wyoming’s Snake River? Either Lavender had found a way to cheat Death or it was someone else using the gunman’s name.

Lyle Colbert didn’t like it either way for Frank Lavender, or whoever it was, had come to town to destroy Lyle Colbert, supposedly out of love for the pretty Tess Bright. It wasn’t certain if Tess reciprocated the gunman’s love, but it did not matter for she would have no time to make up her mind. Colbert was determined to kill Frank Lavender. Again.

Logan Winters begins this book with an exciting chase that leaves a man near dead, and without a memory of who he is. Once found by a family struggling to make a living as loggers, the father sees an opportunity to solve his problems through deceit – although he considers himself both “fortunate and ingeniously clever” – tricking the stranger into believing he’s someone he’s not.

And so begins an exciting tale of a logging war and discovery; the latter being of the stranger trying to piece his past life back together and finding out who he really is, and that of love. There are plenty of memorable characters, not least the stranger, there’s also Tess and her brother, Andy. Then there’s the hired gun Santana with his own code on who he’ll kill.

The action scenes are first rate and Winter’s writing is easy to read and well paced, as I’d expect having read other books by this author – which meant the small continuity error near the end came as a bit of a surprise, still this did nothing to spoil my enjoyment of the book and wont keep me from reading more of his work.

Dead Man’s Guns is officially released at the end of January but can be pre-ordered now from the usual Internet sources. If you are thinking of buying this book then you might like to know that this author – real name Paul Lederer – also has a second BHW published this month called Quinn’s Last Run as by Owen G. Irons.