By C. Courtney Joyner
Pinnacle, December 2013
Dr. John Bishop thought he’d seen his share of death on the battlefields of America’s great Civil War. Then his quiet life was shattered when a gang of outlaws invaded his home, killed his family, and tortured him within an inch of his life. John Bishop’s soul may have died that day, but his mangled body lived on. A beautiful Cheyenne named White Fox nursed him back to health – and a gunsmith outfitted him with a special shotgun rig where his left arm used to be. A strap across one shoulder fires it, while the chip on the other fuels his quest for vengeance. Now the man called Shotgun rides deep into the Colorado winter to find and kill the men who murdered everything he once held dear. The hunt will lead him straight to the heart of a fiendish criminal conspiracy – and force him to confront the violent legacy of his own outlaw brother.
C. Courtney Joyner has written a book that reads much like a spaghetti western with its use of trick weapons, savage violence, and a large cast of characters that are there to meet grisly ends. White Fox is a match for any man when dealing out death and anti-hero Bishop doesn’t seem to care for anything other than completing his quest for vengeance…or does he? After all he is/was a doctor and his oath to help the hurt emerges a time or two to contradict his more brutal side.
Running alongside the vengeance theme is a search for stolen gold. A treasure that various groups of killers believe Bishop knows the whereabouts of. This of course sees the doctor and White Fox being hunted so his knowledge can be gained from him by whatever means necessary.
The book is very visual in style, which isn’t surprising when you consider its origins as a film and a comic before finally surfacing as a book some fifteen years after it was first conceived and you can read more about this here.
A surprising revelation about one characters’ fate means there’s an excellent opening for a follow-up book and I’m definitely looking forward to this as Shotgun proved to be a hard-hitting and extremely entertaining read.
The book also includes C. Courtney Joyner’s short story The Two-Bit Kill that was originally published in the anthology Law of the Gun.
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4 comments:
Hello my friend! I fell of the Earth a while back, but have returned.
Anyway, just wanted to say that Shotgun sounded ridiculous and the matter-of-fact cover just seemed to prove how hokey the whole thing is. The Evil Dead’s Ash is the only mechanical-armed hero I’ll accept!
But I picked it up anyway based solely on your review. Having read only the intro and the first chapter, I am LOVING the book.
You were spot-on with the comparison to the feel of a spaghetti western and the visual quality of the writing and that stuff is right up my alley.
I hope C. Courtney Joyner has a bright career as a writer ahead of him. I also hope he writes about characters other than Shotgun.
Great to have you back James :)
Glad you're enjoying Shotgun....and a little bird (ok C. Courtney Joyner) has told me the sequel is being written now.
Hey Steve, no review of the second or third Shotgun books. I've picked them up (they are so cheap, how could I not?) but haven't read them yet. Is your lack of reviews a sign of what you thought of them?
I haven't got around to reading them James. One day I will....he says hopefully - so many books...and all that....
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