When constable Jeremiah Claggett is murdered by Frank Lord, the kill-crazy leader of a dozen wild outlaws, Bloody Joe has to come to grips with the fact that he’s inadvertently to blame. Mannion had turned Frank’s brother, Billy, over to Claggett for safekeeping, setting off the chain of events that end his friend’s life. Mannion is the kill-crazy one now. Not realizing he’s being shadowed by forces unknown, Mannion sets out on his vengeance quest.
In typical Bloody Joe style, he storms Lord’s gang single-handedly, which nearly proves his undoing – until he’s set upon by a mystery ‘Man of the Lord’ and given…something. Whether that something is good or bad Mannion has difficulty discerning.
Peter Brandvold has commented that Bloody Joe Mannion is one of his favourite characters and I’m very much in agreement with that statement. I really like how Mannion allows his anger to determine his actions, how he pushes aside everything else in his life as he relentlessly hunts down his prey. Mannion will suffer both mentally and physically before the conclusion of this tale.
Bloody Joe isn’t the only great character in this series, but the regulars that have had large parts to play in previous books only have small roles this time around. Mannion’s wife, Jane, has some decisions to make when a man she hasn’t seen for many years arrives in town which leads to a powerful scene at the end of the story.
The vast majority of the book follows Mannion’s attempts wipe out the Lord gang. During this Bloody Joe will have to struggle with unsettling changes within his person. Why did he decide to bring in Billy Lord alive instead of just killing him? This seems to be a new side of him that Mannion is not sure he likes, especially as it leads to the death of his friend, Jeremiah Claggett. Mannion isn’t the only one who has to deal with self-blame, there’s Claggett’s daughter too, who also sets out to kill Frank Lord.
The action scenes are hard-hitting, brutal at times, as Mannion deals out justice. There are elements of mystery too, such as who is the lone rider shadowing Bloody Joe and why is he doing so? The Man of the Lord makes for a fascinating character too, can he really summon powers unexplained to help him ’feed the beast’ or is there a more rational explanation? All this combines to make a gripping read that left me eager to read the fourth book in the series as soon as possible.
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