The Gunsmith #352

UNBOUND BY LAW

By J.R. Roberts

Jove, April 2011

Riding across New Mexico, Clint Adams finds over a dozen dead people showing no visible wounds. Disgusted by the scene, he rides into the surrounding towns, determined to uncover the identities of the victims and bring their murderers to justice.

But Clint’s investigations only raise eyebrows among the locals, who leave his questions unanswered – and brings him to the attention of those responsible for the massacre. People who have no qualms putting the Gunsmith at the top of a hit list…

I’ve often thought the tagline on the front of the Gunsmith books is a bit misleading: ‘The all-action western series’, as there is very little fighting with either guns or fists in many of the books as that tag implies, and this entry into the series is one of those. What it does have is an extremely well written sense of urgency, a fast flowing style that sweeps the reader up and defies you to put the book down before you find out the answers to the questions Clint Adams is looking for.

The plot is fairly straightforward. The method of killing the people Adams finds is not hard to guess when he discovers them, in fact the author tells us anyway only a few pages later. It’s who did it, and why, that becomes the main thrust of the story.

Once more J.R. Roberts presents the reader with a collection of well-created characters. This story turning up a very memorable man in the form of the hired gun that doesn’t want the fame he could get for being the man to kill the Gunsmith. He’ll do it provided he can keep out of the limelight.

The story is dialogue driven, and this provides lots of tough talking as the characters attempt to bluff and double-guess each others intentions. Of course being a book in an adult series there is quite a bit of graphic sex too.

Like many Gunsmith books I found this to be a quick and entertaining read that left me wanting to read another straight away.