Blood at Sundown

By Peter Brandvold

Pinnacle, January 2019

Lou Prophet and the deadly Louisa Bonaventure have torn a bloody swath across Dakota territory in search of the Gritch Hatchley gang. When they finally catch up to them, an epic blizzard threatens to turn the Dakota prairie into a frozen hell. To bag their prey before the storm hits, Prophet and Louisa split up – and take separate paths towards damnation.

Prophet’s course takes him into a town packed to the gills with the deadliest outlaws that roamed the frontier, while Louisa gets caught in Sundown, a one-horse town where a hatchet-wielding maniac threatens to paint Main Street red. When spring’s thaw comes, they’ll find a city of corpses beneath the snow.

And nobody gives a damn about the law…

After a joint and bloody assault on a roadhouse full of outlaws it isn’t long before Prophet and The Vengeance Queen head in different directions to bring in the last of Hatchley’s gang. Peter Brandvold then pretty much splits the tale in two, switching between Prophet and Louisa regularly as they each track down a pair of outlaws. Once cornering, and dealing with, their targets, both Prophet and Lousia become involved in violent incidents that have to be dealt with before they can meet up again. It’s these troubles that make up the bulk of the story and give the book a feel of it being two separate tales combined into one.

As expected from any story written by Peter Brandvold the book is ram-packed with vividly descriptive ferocious violence, especially Louisa’s struggle to identify and deal with the killer who dispatches his victims with a hatchet, although the mystery to discover just who this is gets easier as the corpses pile up. 

Prophet finds himself involved with visiting Russians, and a rich man’s jealousy, never mind this man’s arrogance which leads to bloody slaughter. Yes, this book contains a very high death toll and you have to wonder if anyone will be left alive by the end.

It’s no secret that I enjoy Peter Brandvold’s tales and this book is right up there with his best work and I’m now very much looking forward to the next Lou Prophet novel, The Cost of Dying, due to be released in July.