Fugitive Run

By Chet Cunningham

Hale, February 2012

David West is a fugitive on the run. As an innocent man he leaves Boston and heads for Junction Springs, Colorado.

In Junction Springs a one-woman detective agency needs help to discover the identity of her father’s killer, and West is just the man for the job. After several shoot-outs, a kidnapping, and a high land-swindle scheme, the killer is nailed and brought to trial.

With his new expertise, West returns to Boston to seek justice and find the man who killed his fiancée. Can West avenge her death and once more find love?

Chet Cunningham is a name that should be familiar to many western readers as he has written well over a hundred westerns for American publishers. Fugitive Run is his third Black Horse Western, the first, Survival Trail appeared in July 1995 and his second, Wade’s War, much more recently, hitting the shelves in September 2010. The book also has much smaller print than the majority of BHWs.

Helping Susan Kramer find her father’s killer gives David West an education in how to solve a murder, teaches him how to think and work like a detective. With the book being set towards the close of the 1800s Chet Cunningham is able to include ground-breaking crime solving techniques such as fingerprinting – this is mainly mentioned as background to the story but makes for fascinating reading. Another invention that proves indispensable when West returns to Boston is the telephone. Of course fists and six-guns have their uses too, in fact the book begins with a traditional ambush and shoot-out and later the use of a pistol provides one of the highlights of the story when West is called out to draw against a man called Hondo.

Filled with great characters and a fast moving plot this book was a joy to read, and I hope it isn’t too long before another BHW appears from Chet Cunningham.

Fugitive Run is officially released on February 29^th but is available now from the usual Internet bookstores.