Longshot

By C.J. Sommers

Hale, December 2014

More than a decade ago the Red Butte boys had been one of the most powerful and deadly gangs in Arizona Territory; pulling off the Big Springs robbery and netting $50,000 in gold certificates, before disappearing. Since then, no sign of the gang or gold certificates had been seen and it was assumed that the gang was living off the proceeds of the heist in Mexico.

But when one of the certificates surfaces in the town of Bisbee, the Bank Examiner’s Office hopes that the trail of the robbers can be traced. And who better to take on this ghost hunt than the tenacious Laredo?

Laredo makes for an intriguing lead character, a man who thinks of retiring after each case, a man who enjoys the chase but not the killing. But this assignment may be too much for him; just how do you find a gang that vanished so long ago?

C.J. Sommers’ story moves forwards at a tremendous pace, filled with action as someone doesn’t like Laredo nosing around. Hidden identities are one of the problems Laredo has to figure out and there’s also a couple of neat twists along the way. And what of the talkative Alicia? How much does she really know and what angle is she playing? Obviously I can’t answer those questions here, but I will say she is part of a surprising ending for someone.

As I’ve revealed a number of times on Western Fiction Review, C.J. Sommers is a pseudonym used by Paul Lederer, a writer who should be on the reading list of all fans of the western genre. If you’ve yet to try his work then this book could well be the ideal starting place.

For some reason I cannot find this book for sale at Amazon.com