By Hank J. Kirby
A Black Horse Western from Hale, September 2011
Jubal Mann was the closest he’d ever been to realizing a
long-held dream. With all his experience following the wild and dangerous
cattle trails, from the Rio to Canada, he figured he could start a new breed of
cattle: Longhorn Cross with imported Angus Red.
Mann was convinced that the best of the hardy,
self-sufficient Longhorn combined with the meat-bearing quality of the Angus
would put top-notch steaks on the plates of a nation, and dollars in his
pocket.
However his past came back to haunt him: just as he had his
dream within reach, killers moved in and he found himself with his back to the
wall, and a smoking gun in each hand.
Cattle breeding is just the backbone to this story, it plays
little part to the main thrust of the plot, this being a bounty placed on Jubal
Mann by an unknown enemy, which leads to a number of well written violent
confrontations.
The pace of the book is superb, as one would expect from
this author – Hank J. Kirby being one of the pseudonyms used by Keith
Hetherington: a writer who has been putting out quality westerns for many
years. The story also offers a number of surprises, and the twist that comes
along about half-way through the book was completely unforeseen by me and meant
it was virtually impossible for me to put the book down from then on as I had
to discover what would happen next and how it would all play out.
Even though the reader knows who is behind the attempts on
Mann’s life, the why isn’t revealed until the author is good and ready to tell.
By the end, all the plot threads are neatly tied up and I was left eagerly
looking forward to Keith Hetherington’s next book.
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