Dakota Lawman #3

THE BIG GUNDOWN

by Bill Brooks

HarperTorch, October2005

The third, and probably last, book in the Dakota Lawman series, as Harper seem to have stopped publishing westerns.

Jake Horn is still hiding behind the badge of lawman in the Dakota town of Sweet Sorrow and his discovery of a dead ranch hand is soon bringing his demons home. Jake recognizes a murder when he sees one but asking too many questions of the wrong people is asking for trouble, and suddenly expert killers are gathering with their sights on the lawman. As the big gundown approaches Jake finds there's nowhere to hide when five shooters blinded by hate won't leave Sweet Sorrow until he's dead.

Unlike the previous two books in this series, Bill Brooks gives some of his characters hope, gives them something to live for – even if this could soon be taken away with a bullet.

Most of the people from the earlier books have a part to play in this story of brutality and savage death. The killing at the beginning being particularly horrific and will have the reader hoping the perpetrators will meet an equally savage end.

Bill Brooks also includes other adult themes such as homosexuals in both sexes. In fact the female lovers have a major role to play in the life of a gunman hunting Horn for a long ago killing he didn't commit.

Like his other books Brooks spends quite a bit of time introducing us to new characters and explaining their backgrounds, how they came to be the kind of person they are, which at times I felt held up the main flow of the story.

The book – indeed the trilogy of books – comes to a satisfactory ending here, and once more I'd recommend this series to readers who like the more brutal – in theme and action - type of western.

Dakota Lawman #2

KILLING MR. SUNDAY

by Bill Brooks

HarperTorch, June 2005

This is the second Dakota Lawman book.

Jake Horn was on the dodge for a crime he didn't commit. The town of Sweet Sorrow took him in and rewarded him with a badge he never wanted. Still, this out-of-the-way Dakota hellhole is a good place for a man to get lost in. Then William Sunday arrives, he's suffering from an illness that will soon claim his life and he's determined to reconcile with his daughter before his body does him in – or the band of bounty hunters hot on his trail. Then there's the man who killed his wife and children, a man Horn must bring to justice…

The title and blurb for this book are a bit misleading in that they indicate that William Sunday is the main storyline of this tale; in fact the hunt for the man who kills his family and it's effects on other people are the major storylines of this book.

The idea of Sunday dying of cancer can't help but bring comparisons to John Wayne's last film, The Shootist.

Bill Brooks manages to create a strong depressing atmosphere to the town of Sweet Sorrow, a backdrop for his, mainly, sad characters to act out their miserable lives. Brooks spends a lot of time explaining his characters past lives and following events that bring them to Sweet Sorrow – such as a wagon load of saloon girls.

Action comes at regular intervals and is often described in all its brutal violence and the reader has to wonder how many of the stories characters will be alive at the end of the book.

Like the first book in this series I felt it would have been better a little shorter, but even so Killing Mr. Sunday is a gripping read and is worth a look by any fan of the western genre if you like the harder, grittier approach to your reading material.

Dakota Lawman #1

 LAST STAND AT SWEET SORROW
by Bill Brooks

HarperTorch, Feb. 2005

This the first in a new series about Jake Horn, a healer, now falsely accused of murder.

Sweet Sorrow is filled with misfits, drunks, gamblers and dreamers. The perfect town for Jake to get lost in. But a strange plague of madness, brutality and murder runs rampant - and a slippery Texan named Roy Bean is pressuring Jake to become the town Marshal. Unknown to Jake a famous bounty hunter is tracking him down to collect the substantial reward for bringing Jake Horn in stone cold dead!

Bill Brooks writes a good book filled with interesting people, many who have a troubled past. Occasionally I thought the need to tell us about his characters past bordered on the long side, seemed a bit like padding, particularly when the same ground was covered in two different peoples backgrounds. One thing that came over well was a sense of sadness for all the characters; they all seemed to be those dreamers mentioned earlier.

The violence is brutal and shocking at times. The madness driving people to the edge, and beyond, of insanity. The question of what was causing these violent acts hooked me from the beginning, kept me reading to find out the answer. At one point it seemed as if there would not be anyone living by the end.

My first book by this author and it wont be my last.