Wanted Dead or Alive

By Ralph Hayes

The Crowood Press, March 2019

A year after being saved from kidnapping, Dulcie Provost is waiting for the return of her rescuer, bounty hunter Certainty Sumner. But first Sumner has to carry out one more mission – tracking down the sadistic outlaw known as the Lakota Kid.

But unbeknown to Sumner, he himself is also the quarry of an equally ruthless bounty hunter, Luther Bastian. The father of a gang member Sumner killed while rescuing Dulcie wants vengeance and has duped Bastian into believing that Sumner has turned outlaw.

Can Sumner possibly survive being hunted down by a bounty hunter as skilled and determined as himself.

Ralph Hayes is a name many western fans will recognize. He’s an author whose work has been published for many years, his popular series featuring Buffalo Hunter: O’Brien first appearing in 1971. In 2011 O’Brien got a new lease of life as he returned in four new books under the Black Horse Western banner. Hayes also began writing other new westerns that would be published as BHWs.

Wanted Dead or Alive is the third book in the Certainty Sumner’s series. The author includes enough information to explain what has happened in the earlier stories so this one can be enjoyed as a stand-alone title but readers may prefer to read The Lawless Breed and The Way of the Gun first. Not only does this book feature Sumner’s but it also has a leading role for another of Hayes’ characters, Luther Bastian, and, again, you may like to read the book he first appeared in, Texas Vengeance, to fill yourself in on his backstory.

This fast paced tale switches regularly between the main characters as it builds towards an inevitable showdown between Sumner and Bastian and the questions I soon had were would Hayes kill off one or the other, perhaps both? If Sumner survives would there be a future for him and Dulcie Provost? What of the Lakota Kid – would he have a deciding role in who lives and dies? Whatever the outcome to these questions this was another very enjoyable book written by Ralph Hayes and I look forward to any future publications.

Seven Days to Die

THE LONER #6

By J.A. Johnstone

Pinnacle, July 2010

Once he was a young, happily married businessman. Then he lost his wife to human madness and that young man was gone, replaced by Kid Morgan, the wandering son of legendary gunfighter Frank Morgan and the current occupant of a cell in Hell Gate prison. The Kid’s crime? He looked too much like an outlaw who escaped from this very prison. So the Kid teams up with a fellow inmate with an escape plan, vowing to hunt down a loo-alike killer on the loose. But in or out of prison, Frank Morgan’s boy knows better than to trust anyone. And with Hell Gate behind him, any day could be his last. So every bullet must be his best.

I can’t believe seven years have passed since I read The Loner #5, especially as I enjoyed the previous books a lot, making The Loner my favourite Johnstone series at that time. The Loner is also the only series to come from the Johnstone family credited to just J.A. Johnstone rather than William W. Johnstone with J.A. Johnstone.

The author behind this series certainly doesn’t believe in giving his hero and easy time. The Kid’s experiences in Hell Gate being particularly brutal. The prison warden being a sadistic man who seems to delight in others suffering. The Kid’s eventual escape providing some tense reading that sees him on the run with another prisoner, Drake, and the Warden’s kidnapped daughter, Jillian.

Once free from the prison, The Kid begins to doubt his fellow ex-prisoners motives as his involvement with the man, Bledsoe, whom The Kid was mistaken for, start to emerge. Can he be trusted? As The Kid, Drake and Jillian begin to close in on Bledsoe so the danger mounts as the best laid plans go astray leading to an exciting, bloody finale.

Seven Days to Die is another excellent story in The Loner series and is a book I believe will be enjoyed by all western fans. I know one thing for sure, I will not let another seven years pass before I read the next one, hopefully it’ll be in the next month or two. 

Dark Territory

Sheriff Aaron Mackey book 2

By Terrence McCauley

Pinnacle, April 2019

A rash of deadly train robberies has the chief investor of Dover Station feeling itchier than a quick draw without a target. And he wants Sheriff Aaron Mackey to scratch that itch with every bullet his battered badge authorizes him to shoot. When Mackey and his backup gun down four kill-crazy bandits, they uncover a plot cooked up by respected citizens of Dover Station – someone who can pull enough strings to replace Mackey with a disgraced marshal from Texas. Now Mackey’s badge may not say much, but his gun defies all fear. Anyone who stands between Mackey and the future of Dover Station is about to become buried in the pages of history . . . 

All the main characters who survived the previous book, Where the Bullets Fly, return in this gripping struggle for control of the rapidly growing Dover Station. Author Terrence McCauley has won awards for his crime and thriller stories and this tale borrows heavily from those genres in that Mackey and his deputy have to solve a lot of puzzles to unravel the mysteries of who is doing what and for what reasons so Dark Territory reads like a detective novel at times with a heavy dose of noir…and for me that isn’t a bad thing.

As each incident is solved either by word or gun, then another is born from that result. Even as Mackey begins to suspect the who and the why, proving it becomes another problem and it begins to look like Mackey will be on the losing side, stripped of his badge and unwelcome in Dover Station, perhaps dead as the army of gunmen stacking against him rise to unbeatable odds.

Tough, brutal, tense, edge-of-the-seat action scenes and plenty of twists, Dark Territory proved to be a difficult to put down read that has a very satisfactory ending that could lead to a third book. Let’s hope Pinnacle sees fit to continue putting out novels featuring Mackey rather than have him vanish after just two books like many of their recently launched series have done. 

Dark Horse

By Lee Clinton

The Crowood Press, July 2019

Nettie Youcheck must fight for what is rightfully hers, the large and profitable Double U cattle ranch. If she fails, her future will be a life of servitude under the control of a vicious and vindictive father. By her side are just two allies – Hollis, the old, black house servant, and Rita, who runs the town brothel and knows Nettie’s past.

If justice prevails then all will go well for Nettie, but since when was life like a fairy tale? Certainly not with the involvement of Albert Hopkins from the Missouri Savings and Loans Bank who has his own malicious agenda. Just thank the Lord that Nettie can shoot straight – because she soon has a fight on her hands.

Having read and thoroughly enjoyed all of Lee Clinton’s Black Horse Westerns I’m always eager to read his new books as soon as I can. Like his previous work, Dark Horse, is a gripping read that is filled with interesting characters that get caught up in a plot full of suspense, surprises and twists that I don’t see coming.

Dark Horse is also different in that it is told in the first person – something Black Horse Westerns weren’t known for when published by Hale, but since being put out by Crowood this method of storytelling is appearing more frequently. Lee Clinton still manages to get a first though, at least I don’t remember any other BHW being told from this type of viewpoint, and that is telling the tale through the voice of a female lead character who is in her eighties and she is the Dark Horse of the title.

Nettie tells of events in her past. A tale of devious events, of greed and learning, of shocking revelations and new experiences that held my attention superbly. Nettie seems to be in a no-win situation and her attempts to gain control of what should be hers could see her branded a murderer and face a life-time in jail and as the story progresses this seems to be the only possible outcome. 

Lee Clinton resolves all these seemingly impossible situations with clever solutions that bring the plot to a fitting end but he has one last twist waiting for the final short chapter that left me wondering and with a big satisfied grin on my face, eagerly looking forward to his next book.

Lee Clinton is a pseudonym used by Australian author Leigh Alver and I can honesty say he is one of my favourite Black Horse Western writers working today and more than matches the best of the past too. 

Available in both hardback and ebook at the end of July.