Gunsmoke Express

By Gillian F. Taylor

Crowood Press, June 2019

Thanks to a tip-off, Sheriff Alec Lawson and his deputies fight and capture the notorious outlaw Saul York. But the trouble doesn’t end there. Alec falls desperately ill and when he recovers, he finds that York’s lawyer has got him out on bail.

Although still weakened by his illness, Alec is determined to get back to work. He soon finds himself in the action again, but fatigue leads to a terrible mistake and he begins to doubt his abilities. Will his frailty endanger his friends? York is still out there somewhere, protected by his ambitious lawyer.

When York becomes his prime suspect in a murderous robbery, Alec Lawson must push himself to close the net on the elusive outlaw. He’ll have to face down a lynch mob, the killer outlaw and his own doubt to get the job done, whatever the cost to himself.

I’ve read a number of Gillian F. Taylor’s Black Horse Westerns and thoroughly enjoyed them all, so was looking forward to reading this, the fourth of her books to feature Sheriff Alec Lawson. The books in this particular series all have the word Express in the title and all involve a train at some point in the storyline.

Each book in the series is a self-contained novel, so you can jump in anywhere. The only real connections the books have to each other are characters and their relationships, and this one finds Alec having to deal with his feelings for and confusion in the way two women react to him now as well as hunting down York and proving that he has done the crimes the sheriff believes he’s committed. 

There’s plenty of gunplay as well as battles of words to trick York into admitting his guilt. Alec confronting York’s lawyer, Hart, makes for some fascinating reading too. Alec’s banter with his deputies adds some welcome light-hearted humour to the story. Taylor brings everything together in an exciting, tense, conclusion that brings the book to a brutal ending that leaves me hoping Gillian won’t take too long in writing another story about Sheriff Alec Lawson as I’ve got to know if the lawman will ever work out what is going on with the two women in his life.