Trapped!

BOWEN AND BAILE #4

By Frank Roderus

Western Trail Blazer, January 2014

An old friend from Cole’s past approaches the Bowen & Baile Detective Agency for help on an odd quest - to give back a stolen fortune. The only problem is, the man’s partners don’t want it to be given back…

The Bowen and Baile books are short and are therefore perfect for when you want a quick read, between those more lengthy novels perhaps.

This, the fourth in the series, has more of a straight western plot then the others that read like detective fiction set in the west, and why shouldn’t they? After all Bowen and Baile are partners in a Detective Agency.

Helping an old friend allows Frank Roderus the opportunity to fill the reader in on more of Cole’s past, something he tries to stop Johnny Adams from revealing, only thing is Adams is very eager to tell and doesn’t really need the prompting from Baile, which leads to some humorous exchanges.

The ride to retrieve the stolen fortune sees Bowen, Baile, and Adams being trailed by a number of riders. This adds an air of tension to the mission and, of course, leads to a brief but deadly exchange of gunfire that brings the story to its conclusion.

Like the previous three entries in the series, Trapped! proved to be an entertaining read and left me looking forward to Bowen and Bailes’ next assignment.