LAST MAN IN LAZARUS

By Bill Shields

Hale, March 2012

When a town marshal is murdered by five escaping prisoners and his new bride is abducted, the killers think they have escaped the justice they deserve. But the marshal’s older brother is Nathan Holly, a feared and relentless US marshal, who is more than happy to take up pursuit.

Holly rides north with a one-man posse, a Paiute tracker called Tukwa. For years Tukwa has searched for the cavalry officer who mistakenly, but brutally, massacred his family. Both men will end their search amidst the winter snows of a mining town called Lazarus, in a storm of blood and vengeance which will turn the landscape red.

Last Man in Lazarus is the second Black Horse Western from Bill Shields, and after enjoying his first book, The Snake River Bounty, I was keen to read this.

If you like books packed with action then you need look no further than this. Savage bloody gunfights and knife duels fill the pages, as Holly tracks down the men who killed his brother. The trail of the last murderer takes the lawman to the town of Lazarus where Tukwa finds the man he has been hunting, but why is this men here? Something isn’t quite right in Lazarus and Holly finds himself involved in the towns’ troubles too.

Great lead and support characters and plenty of twists and turns to the plot told in a very readable and fast moving pace made this book very difficult to put down. The book offers a question too, is there any difference between the vengeance that drives both Holly and Tukwa? Tukwa will only be satisfied with killing the ex-cavalry officer but can Holly be satisfied with taking his prey alive or will death be the only way to quench his appetite for revenge?

I can only finish by saying that I hope it’s not too long before Bill Shields’ third book appears.

Last Man in Lazarus is officially released on March 30th but is available now from the usual Internet sources.