The Trail to Devil's Canyon

By Cole Matthews

The Crowood Press, June 2018

Anton Kozlov, a mountain man who wanted no part of trouble, had escaped Russia and made a life for himself living on and near Battle Mountain in Nevada.

Anton is asked to do a ‘favour’ for a US Cavalry officer – to retrieve a mail-order bride from a stage station and return her to the cavalryman. It sounds easy enough until Anton learns that the stage has broken down near a notorious nest of outlaws. Anton manages to rescue Lucy, the cavalry officer’s bride, and they slowly make their way back to his cabin in Devil’s Canyon.

However, the journey is fraught with danger, and their arrival at the stockade spells future trouble when it becomes apparent that Lucy’s husband-to-be has endangered them all by committing atrocities against the local Paiute tribe.

Will this be the last chance or the end of the line for Anton Kozlov?

This is the first Black Horse Western to carry the author name of Cole Matthews but it is not the first western from this writer as he has had six published under the name of Matt Cole, one of which I have read and enjoyed. Like that book, this one also begins with a poem.

Once again the author has created a terrific cast of characters and a twisting storyline that will have you guessing as to the outcome, such as how anyone can possibly escape the stockade when it’s completely surrounded by vengeance seeking Paiutes. There’s plenty of action, some of which is quite brutal. The pace of the book is excellent and the ending ties everything up neatly.

There is one thing that I wondered about though, and that was that the author has Kozlov armed with a Hawken rifle – a single-shot weapon I believe – and Kozlov fires at will with this gun without pausing to reload. Still this error is easy to overlook and it didn’t spoil my enjoyment of the story and it hasn’t put me off wanting to read more by this author.