Tuesday 19 March 2019

Easy Company and the Blood Feud

By John Wesley Howard
Jove, March 1983

The Wilsons and the Blantons fled the Texas drought together, the best of friends. But they arrived in Wyoming as warring enemies – and now, Seth Wilson and Maybelle Blanton must hide their passionate love in the night’s darkness.

To make matters worse, the Sioux are attacking the night patrols and a buffalo hunter is shooting Indian cattle in their pens. It’s up to Lt. Matt Kincaid and Easy Co. to stop all the shooting and bring peace to Thunder Basin – before there’s nobody left!

Book 26 in this excellent series involves a number of separate incidents, all taking place at the same time, that are only linked by Easy Company having to resolve them all with as little bloodshed as they possibly can. Frustration, deadly confrontations, and a medicine show complete with an enticing young lady, means there isn’t a moments peace for the men of Easy Company.

By having so many problems to deal with, the author is able to utilize most of the soldiers who make up Easy Company, along with scout Windy Mandalian, so if you have any favourites you’re sure to find them having a role to play in this book.

The author behind the pseudonym of John Wesley Howard this time is Paul Lederer, and he sure knows how to write a fast-moving tale that holds interest from the first page to the last. Action scenes are tough, frantic and exciting, dialogue is snappy and believable, and everything is tied up neatly.

The more deadly situations are nicely balanced by the girl from the medicine show who soon has a number of soldiers believing she wants to marry them, this leads to some very funny moments and also allows the book to end on a comical note. 

Overall, this is a very satisfying and entertaining read that has left me eager to discover just what problems Easy Company will have to face in the next book as soon as I can.

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