Broken Arrow

By Dale Mike Rogers

Hale, December 2014

Erle Hawke is a drifter who sets out from his distant home in search of his brother. For years he finds no sign of his sibling. Unlike the boiling climate, the search has gone cold. Then, after riding into a sun-bleached town, Hawke is told that there is a ranch out in the arid desert looking for hands. The youngster does not realize that the town locals are lying. They are sending him to his death in the uncharted desert.

As Erle slowly begins to succumb to the ferocious heat, and is running out of precious water, a strange vision appears. As Hawke stares into the shimmering heat-haze he sees a chilling character riding towards him: an Indian, painted from head to toe, and sat astride a powerful black horse – the mysterious Broken Arrow.

The above blurb all takes place in the opening pages of this very fast moving story. The questions of who is Broken Arrow and what does he want, remain unanswered for much of the tale, and many more questions offer a number of puzzles to the reader.

Dale Mike Rogers switches regularly between the various groups of characters that are all converging on the same place, many unware of the others existence. As well as Hawke and Broken Arrow there’s a vicious group of killers searching for a long lost treasure, three lawmen tracking the killers, and an unnamed forgotten band of Indians who are shadowing them all.

Dale Mike Rogers is another of Michael D. George’s pseudonyms and this book contains all his current trademarks; excellent descriptive prose that often paints horrific imagery, a lack of women, referring to people as creatures, a breathless pace, and bloody violence.

George’s tales are some of the shorter books that Hale publish under their Black Horse banner and can easily be read in one sitting. If you’ve never tried this author then Broken Arrow could be just the place to start.