A man can flee from everything but his own nature.
1890. Lieutenant Gabriel Stokes of the British Army left behind the horrors of war in Afghanistan for a role in the Metropolitan Police. Though he rose quickly through the ranks, the squalid violence of London’s East End proved as dark and oppressive as the battlefield.
With his life falling apart, and longing for peace and meaning, Gabriel leaves the grime of London behind and heads for the wide-open spaces of the American West.
He soon realises that the wilds of Oregon are far from the idyll he has yearned for. The Blue Mountains may be beautiful, but with the frontier a complex patchwork of feuds and felonies, and ranchers as vicious as any back-alley cut-throat back in London, Gabriel finds himself unable to escape his past and the demons that drive him. Can he find a place for himself on the far edge of the New World?
The story begins with Gabriel already in America. He’s in Huntington to meet an old friend, John Thornford, who owns a sheep ranch. Moments later he witnesses a killing. Turns out the killer, Jed White, works for John and is in town to collect Gabriel. During the ride out to the ranch he learns that John has been killed, supposedly by cattleman Grant who wants John’s land. John’s wife, Mary Ann, asks Gabriel to use his experience as a policeman to find out who killed her husband.
Dark Frontier starts off like your typical land grab tale but soon becomes more of a murder mystery. There’s also a lot for Gabriel to learn about how life differs in the American West compared to London, especially how justice seems to be dealt out at the end of a gun rather than through a court of law. Gabriel’s past also rears its head in memories of fighting alongside John in Afghanistan and of the dark times trying to track down the person known as Jack the Ripper back in London. Both have left terrible scars in his soul and destroyed his marriage too. To say more would ruin Gabriel’s backstory and how he tried to overcome these nightmares. Yet the horrors aren’t just in his past. Gabriel’s investigation will uncover more darkness. The truth behind John’s death is hard hitting and came as a complete surprise.
Gabriel’s relationship with John’s wife, children, and ranch hands, especially White, are well developed by the author and I was soon caught up in their lives. Action scenes were handled well and the mystery behind the murder of John soon had me trying to guess why he’d been killed and by whom. All these story elements hooked me easily and I found the book difficult to put down as I needed answers as much as Gabriel and Mary Ann.
Dark Frontier is Matthew Harffy’s first western and it proved to be a great introduction to his writing. Harffy hints in the author’s notes that it probably won’t be his last. I hope that is true as I’d certainly be eager to read another western by this author and would also like to say that I believe most western fans will find this book to be an entertaining and fulfilling read.
Dark Frontier comes out on July 4th 2024 in both hardback, ebook and audio. It will be released as a paperback in the UK in January 2025 and in America in April 2025.
No comments:
Post a Comment