Bothers in Blood

By Lee Lejeune

Crowood Press, March 2017

As young Stubbs ‘Sunshine’ Shining is riding West, he hears shooting, and sees four gunmen firing at a homestead. He fires a couple of shots to scare them off, and discovers that the person defending the property is a middle-aged woman named Bethany Bartok. She invites Sunshine in and gives him food and drink. He learns that her husband has died, her son Bart has gone off in search of his fortune, and her daughter Elspeth has travelled East to be educated. Sunshine decides to stay on at the farm for a short spell. But soon things get complicated. Bart has been kidnapped and the local Cutaway brothers are determined to get their hands on the property for some reason. Then Sunshine becomes even more deeply involved in the fate of the Bartok homestead when Bethany’s daughter Elspeth returns.

Sunshine soon gets a reputation as a gunfighter, but that’s only the beginning. Why do the Cutaway brothers want the farm? Who is holding young Bart captive? And where is he being held? Sunshine starts to untangle the thread that leads him into very dangerous territory.

As you’ll realize from the above blurb there’s a lot going on in this book and the author includes a few mystery elements to hook the reader right from the very start. As the story develops so more questions are raised that need answers and most of these will only be revealed towards the end of this very fast moving tale. I took a few guesses at who was holding Bart and was only partly right in my assumptions, as I was to why the Cutaway brothers want the farm, so the writer had a few surprises in store for me.

I’ve read a couple of Lee Lejeune’s other Black Horse Westerns and noted that they have strong female characters and this book also contains major roles for equally tough women who aren’t afraid of taking up arms against their enemies.

Brothers in Blood is a story that mixes gunplay, mystery, and memorable characters in a thoroughly entertaining read that left me eager to read another Lee Lejeune western very soon.