The Impostor

THE BADGE #7

By Bill Reno

Bantam, October 1988

Outlaw Jack Decker and his gang are in Dodge City, and they’re out for blood – gunfighter Johnny Valentine’s blood. When Decker makes the mistake of gunning down Valentine’s brother instead, Johnny vows to find Decker and make him pay. Valentine dons the badge of a U.S. marshal and heads out onto the range, looking for Decker’s murderous gang. But he finds more trouble than he bargains for: a killer tornado, a renegade pack of bloodthirsty Kiowas, and a scorned woman who has vowed to find Johnny Valentine and put a bullet between his eyes.

The Badge is a series of 24 books that are linked only by the fact that their heroes wear a badge of some kind, although I believe one or two characters do appear in more than one story. Each book, therefore is a stand-alone tale.

Bill Reno is a pseudonym used by Lew A. Lacy and he is an author that knows how to write page-turners that capture the readers’ imagination easily through excellent characterization, visual descriptions of both landscape and action, and with gripping story-lines that twist and turn and offer surprising outcomes for some of his characters, both good and bad.

The Impostor has as its main theme the desire for revenge and this drives a number of different people, including Suzanne Lane, whose need for vengeance is as just as that of Johnny Valentine’s. When Valentine takes on the identity of a dead lawman it isn’t long before he’s riding alongside the unsuspecting Suzanne, and the story builds to the moment Suzanne discovers his deception superbly. The need to find out how she reacts to this discovery, especially as she’s falling in love with this fake lawman, the man she’s vowed to kill, is what makes this book so hard to put down.

The Badge books are hard-hitting, action-packed and often quite dark in tone. You can never be sure who will be left alive at the end either. All this adds up to compelling reading that leaves me eager to pick up the next in the series straight away. 

The Boot Hill Breed

By Ned Oaks

The Crowood Press, November 2016

Upon learning his mother is seriously ill, Jack Marric leaves his carefree life in California to return home to the tiny village of Jasper, Oregon. He is a quiet man, slow to anger but good with a pistol, who minds his own business and doesn’t look for trouble. But before he reaches Jasper, he is forced into a shootout in a saloon, leaving two of the notorious Harper brothers dead.

Back home, Marric reunites with his family, and he is particularly happy when he learns his sister is engaged to the town marshal. Then some local ranch hands kill the marshal, reigniting an old feud between Marric and their boss, Chance Elson.

As Marric takes over as lawman, he is determined to bring the murderers to justice. Little does he know that one of the surviving Harper brothers is stalking him, just waiting for the opportunity to take vengeance on Jack Marric… and his family.

Ned Oaks doesn’t give his hero Jack Marric an easy time as he has to endure physical and mental pain in a story that revolves around different characters desires for revenge, which will eventually include Marric being driven by the need for vengeance whilst hunting for his sister’s kidnapper.

This book starts with gunplay, then dips slightly in the action stakes as the author paints a picture of happy family life that will be ripped apart violently and that is when the pace picks up again and it becomes an action-packed tale again and by the bloody end all the story threads will be tied up neatly.

Ned Oaks writing is extremely readable, he has created a great set of characters that will keep you turning the pages as you’ll want to find out what happens to them. The Boot Hill Breed is a western that I believe should be enjoyed by all fans of the genre. 

The Old Wolves

RUSTY SPURR #2

By Peter Brandvold

Berkley, August 2013

Deputy United States Marshal Spurr Morgan’s ticker isn’t what it used to be. After Spurr suffers a heart attack on the job, the chief marshal convinces him it’s time to step down. Unwilling to go out on a sour note, Spurr asks for one last assignment.

The chief sends him to bring a prisoner back to Denver from the Medicine Bow Mountains. The mission seems routine for an old hand like Spurr, until he discovers that the criminal in question is his old nemesis, Boomer Drago – the former lawman turned train robber that Spurr’s been trying to run down for years. Now, with Drago’s gang on his trail and a young girl named Greta needing help out of the mountains, Spurr is ready to face his dangerous final job and prove that even old wolves still have a mean bite…

There might only be two books dedicated solely to Spurr Morgan, but followers of Peter Brandvold’s work will know that this likeable old lawman has also appeared in a number of the authors other books under his own name and his pseudonym Frank Leslie. I for one am glad that Peter managed to write a book that brings an end to Spurr’s career before Berkley stopped publishing westerns so that Spurr didn’t become another hero that just vanished as a publisher cancelled a series without giving the author a chance to bring about a satisfying conclusion to his characters escapades.

This book offers everything Brandvold’s followers could ask for; a fast paced plot, tough characters – both male and female, some explicit sex, plenty of brutal action and occasional moments of humour. In fact there are some great one-liners to be found in this book, mainly coming from Morgan or Drago as they reflect on old age.

So does Spurr survive this assignment or does he meet his end by bullet or heart attack? I guess you’ll just have to read the book to find out, and hopefully enjoy this excellent story as much as I did.