Friday 20 July 2012

Old Gun Wolf


By Frank Leslie
Mean Pete Press, July 2012

FOR EX-GUNMAN WILBUR CALHOUN, THE PAST BECOMES HIS FIERCEST ENEMY...

Ex-Confederate soldier, ex-Indian fighter, ex-train robber, ex-gunslinger...ex-father... Wilbur Calhoun just wants to run his little ranch in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado, a quiet place even at the turn-of-the-century. He wants to be left alone, just him and his collie dog, Shep. He wants to weather his last days in peace. 

But then a rider comes after him at the head of a mountain snowstorm. That rider turns out to be Wilbur’s son, Devlin, whom Wilbur hasn’t seen since the boy was two years old. 

Devlin is a deputy U.S. marshal now, and he’s come to arrest his father for murder. But not just any murder. The murder of Devlin’s mother over twenty-five years ago in Tennessee...

Wilbur Calhoun might be old and just want to live quietly and anonymously, but does that mean he’ll go to the hangman peacefully, even when escorted by his long-lost son?

Old Gun Wolf is the first short story from Frank Leslie, at 20 pages it doesn’t take long to read and provides first class entertainment from beginning to end.

Frank Leslie manages to include a lot in this short tale, filling the reader in on the background of Wilbur Calhoun, and of the fatal shooting that sees Devlin wanting to see his father hanged. It’s a tough storyline that contains bloody graphic action.

Animal lovers will warm to Shep and to Wilbur’s dedication to him. There’s a wolf too that provides a neat link to the beginning and end. 

As expected the story is well told and I was kept wondering how it would finish. Would Wilbur or Devlin, perhaps both, or maybe neither, be dead by the conclusion?

And now I’m left eagerly looking forward to the next (short?) ebook from Frank Leslie.

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