Texas Swamp Fever

THE TRAILSMAN #375

By Jon Sharpe

Signet, January 2013

1861, the Texas swamp country – where there are a hundred ways to die.

The Archaletta Swamp is the last place Fargo wants to be. The terrain is dirty, dangerous, and deceptive, and the locals are worse. But he agreed to guide a government party on a peace mission to the Kilatku tribe, if they can make it through. Too bad for the Trailsman that the deadliest predators in this swamp walk on two legs….

This entry into the excellent Trailsman series takes Skye Fargo out of his usual stamping grounds and sees him venturing deep into the swamps to face untold terrors.

And it’s not just animal life that threatens Fargo and his companions, there’s the Kilatku and the white men who call it home, a couple of whom will cause all kinds of headaches for the Trailsman leaving him at the mercy of nature, this scene providing some extremely tense, and memorable, reading.

Descriptions of the swamp and the creatures that inhabit it are superbly written, painting vivid imagery in the minds eye. Packed full of action and frantic battles with the Kilatku, who are one of the more deadly threats The Trailsman has to face and could be equally at home in a horror story with their taste for human flesh….

Brutally savage at times and filled with cracking dialogue this story proved to be very hard to put down which saw me reading it in one sitting.

So, once again, Jon Sharpe (in this case David Robbins writing behind the pseudonym) has come up with the goods, strengthening my belief the The Trailsman is one of the best western series being written today.