RAILROAD RENEGADES

CANYON O’GRADY

Number 12 of 25

By Jon Sharpe

Cover art by Jerome Podwil

Signet, March 1991

Canyon O’Grady knew that the President was targeted for death, by a grisly group that called itself the Blue Goose gang. But Canyon did not know who its members were, or where and when they would hit. On the westward train trip that the President insisted on taking, death could come any minute or any mile…as Canyon faced the toughest challenge and roughest odds of his life…to move faster than an assassin’s bullet and unmask murderers who struck like lightning and burned with hellfire hate….

There’s plenty of action in this fast-moving tale that nearly all takes place on a train at the beginning of February 1861. The fact that President James Buchanan insists on making public speeches in every town they pass through adds to the problems O’Grady has to overcome as these appearances make the President an easy target. Canyon O’Grady also finds himself working alongside a female secret agent for the first time, a woman who is untested in the field. 

The attempts on the President’s life come thick and fast and for some reason I had images of Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner cartoons come into my head as one group of the Blue Goose gang bungled their attacks time after time.

The Canyon O’Grady books are adult westerns so the train does stop overnight a couple of times so that O’Grady can enjoy the company of members of the opposite sex in some explicit encounters.

Using a real life President as the man that O’Grady has to protect does mean that readers will know the killers have to fail but the author still injects some very tense scenes leading up to the various assassination attempts and there are other characters that could well be killed during these attacks. Even though some of the places and methods the Blue Goose gang used to try and kill President Buchanan were very similar, the author managed to keep them interesting so the story didn’t become too repetitive.

Jon Sharpe is a pseudonym shared by a number of different authors, and this time around the man writing behind the penname was Chet Cunningham. This was also his last entry into the series after having written them all from book five and also book three. Railroad Renegades isn’t his best book in the series, but it was still very readable. 

TOMAHAWK JUSTICE

THE TRAILSMAN

Book 141 of 398 + 7 giant editions

By Jon Sharpe

Cover art by Jerome Podwil

Signet, September 1993

1860, Yellowstone country . . . where raw wilderness, natural wonders, and human bloodlust made for a killer combination

The two young Shoshone women seemed too good-looking to be real when Skye Fargo met them in the virgin wilderness. But they were real – real dangerous, as he soon found out. Their father was a chief looking for a vision in the Yellowstone, and looking for Fargo to cover his tail while the chief lifted his eyes to the heavens. For the sacred valley was swarming with the most bloodthirsty redskins in the West – and Fargo was in the middle of a tug-of-want between sisters who gave him no rest, and in the line of fire of Indians who gave no quarter and took no prisoners.

This book doesn’t have a big cast. Fargo is the only white man, then there’s the Shoshone and a band of Bloods. All of this tale unfolds in the wilderness and the author adds some terrific descriptions of the magnificent landscape to give the reader a great sense of place. Amid all the mayhem, Fargo gets a moment to reflect on the advancement of the white man and what it will mean for this wild yet beautiful country. Wildlife also has a part to play, and these creatures add some tense scenes to the story. 

Character studies are well crafted, and dialogue often has humorous undertones adding light-hearted moments to balance the more vicious elements. The many action scenes are at times brutally savage in their descriptions. Let’s not forget that The Trailsman is an adult western series so there are also a number of graphic sex scenes, not as many as in the early books, but a few more than in those towards the end of the series.

Jon Sharpe is a pseudonym shared by a variety of authors. This time it’s David Robbins writing behind that alias, and he has written a fast-moving, action-packed tale that surprised me with its twist ending and proved to be a very entertaining read throughout.

If you’re think of trying to find this book remember the number too, as it shares its title with an earlier entry in the series, book 39.