A World of Hurt

By Tim Bryant

Pinnacle, December 2017

Wilkie John Liquorish is an outlaw as unusual as his name, facing trial in 1882 Fort Worth for the deaths of sixty people and eight hundred head of cattle. Is he responsible? Not really. Is he guiltless? Not at all …

For a young man of seventeen, Wilkie John Liquorish has lived one sorry life. From his ill-fated stint in the U.S. Army to a back-breaking job as a gravedigger, Wilkie just can’t seem to catch a break. His latest gig – working a cattle drive from Mobeetie, Texas, to Fort Worth – is no exception. The food-poisoning death of a chuckwagon cook has everyone spooked, and fear spreads like a disease. Wilkie barely makes it out alive. But when he shows up in Fort Worth, he has another kind of death waiting for him – in the unlikely form of Gentleman Jack Delaney …

A fancily-dressed bounty hunter from New Orleans, Gentleman Jack is ready to nail and hang young Wilkie as soon as he arrives in town. He claims the boy is the most wanted outlaw in Texas. If Wilkie can manage to outsmart, outrun, or outgun this not-so-gentle man, he just might go down in history. Or swing from a tree. Or both …

Although Tim Bryant has had a number of books published, this, the first western to carry his name, is my introduction to his writing.

The book is written in the first person and is filled with colourful characters. Most of the story follows Wilkie John’s trial but this is broken up by many flashbacks that tell the sorry tale of how Wilkie has ended in this deadly situation. Tim Bryant builds the tension extremely well and you’ll soon be wondering how Wilkie can possibly escape with his life as Gentleman Jack and a preacher argue the points for either taking or saving his life.

Wilkie John’s backstory is one of adventure, love and violence. Wilkie has a wonderful way of getting round people who get in the way of him achieving his goals, yeap he ups and shoots them. So a white-hatted hero he isn’t.

Tim Bryant tells his story with style and includes a lot of dark humour in both Wilkie’s observations and some of the situations Wilkie finds himself in. Bryant’s descriptions are top class too, painting vivid imagery of both characters and surroundings. The author also has a number of surprises waiting in store too, but to say more would ruin the story for those intending to read it and those readers ought to include all fans of the western genre.

A World of Hurt is the first Wilkie John Western and the second, Dead and Buried is due out in June 2018 and I am certainly looking forward to reading it.