From the Vineyards of Hell

By Harry Jay Thorn

The Crowood Press, April 2017

When ex lawman Captain Joshua Beaufort, late of Hood’s Texas Brigade, marches clear of the hell that was Gettysburg he has no intention whatsoever of any further engagement in the Civil War; he has, in his own words, killed enough Yankees. But the war has not finished with the Confederate captain and, captured by Union troops, he is given a choice – help to end the war on their terms or spend the rest of it in a prisoner-of-war camp. Colonel Horatio Vallance and the mysterious E.J. Allen persuade him it is in his best interests to cooperate with the North. So, in company with and under the watchful eye of young Corporal Benbow, Beaufort returns to his home state of Texas to old loves, old friends and old enemies. His task, to bring back the head of Buford Post, a notorious warmonger and gunrunner who is in possession of 300 stolen Henry repeating rifles….

A book that is mainly told in the first person, occasionally switching to the third when dealing with events that don’t include the main character, is not that common in Black Horse Westerns. Even less so is the fact that this story is set during the American Civil War and the opening sequences feature the horrors of Manassas and Gettysburg.

Like many books that deal with war this one throws up a few questions about the futility of it all. This includes the mission Beaufort finds himself on, that of trying to retrieve the stolen rifles so the Confederates can’t kill Union soldiers with them so they can then be used by the latter to kill the former. Whichever way round it is it’ll all lead to a waste of life, as is said in a discussion about what will happen to the rifles if Beaufort succeeds in getting them back from the gunrunners, “Does it really matter that much who gets the rifles, the North or the South? They will still kill hundreds of men.”

Harry Jay Thorn tells his tale at a great pace, his descriptions of battle quite graphic at times. Beaufort is not a man without faults, and we even begin to wonder about his motives through a suggestion by a secondary character. Beaufort is also a likeable lead which is good as I’ve seen comment that this book is the first in a new series to feature Joshua Beaufort and if the future books are as good as this one than that is one series I’m looking forward to reading.