Terror in Tombstone

By Paul Bedford

Crowood Press, May 2016

Former lawman Rance Toller and his lover Angie Sutter foil a stagecoach robbery just outside the frontier settlement of Tombstone, Arizona, and in the process capture the notorious gunfighter Johnny Ringo.

As a result, Rance is persuaded to accept the vacant position of town marshal, formerly held by one of the famous Earp brothers. Unfortunately, he soon falls foul of the Big Silver mining operators led by E.B. Gage, who want the law on their own terms.

With the dubious help of his new friend, Doc Holliday, Rance has to fight for his life against Gage’s ruthless enforcers, as well as take on a band of murderous cattle rustlers and the vengeful Ringo, who has escaped a jail cell with mysterious ease. It is not long before brutal bloody violence explodes on the streets of Tombstone.

Paul Bedford combines both real and fictional characters in this, the third, book of his to feature Rance Toller and Angie Sutter, the others being The Devil’s Work and The Outlaw Trail. The inclusion of people who really lived is not something new in Paul Bedford’s work as most, if not all, of his seven Black Horse Westerns have also had roles for them too. What I like about this one, is that Rance has no idea who Ringo, the Earps, or Doc Holliday are and is certainly not in awe of their reputations.

Ringo’s attempt at getting revenge for being captured and jailed by Rance sees an escalation in violence as Toller’s life becomes a mission to bring Ringo down. The town of Tombstone will erupt as dynamite and bullets fly almost non-stop making this an action-packed story.

Terror in Tombstone is a fast-paced read that thoroughly entertains and leaves me looking forward to Paul Bedford’s next book, The Deadly Shadow, due out in August.

The Devil's Work

By Paul Bedford

Hale, May 2013

It is December 1880 and snow covers the town of Devil’s Lake in northern Dakota Territory, where there have recently been two connected killings on the outlying homesteads. Angie Sutter, the attractive young widow of one of the murdered men arrives in town, seeking help from local marshal Rance Toller.

But having jailed a particularly menacing individual who appears out of place in such a quiet town Rance is reluctant to head out into the frozen wasteland, especially as there is only an ageing deputy to stand guard. On returning to Devil’s Lake, Rance and Angie find the deputy dead and the prisoner gone….

Having really enjoyed Paul Bedford’s debut Black Horse Western, Blood on the Land, I’d been looking forward to this one and I must say it more than lives up to the excellence of the previous novel.

From the opening pages this story is almost non-stop action as Rance and Angie find themselves taking on a whole band of regulators set on taking over Devil’s Lake and the surrounding area. There’s plenty of flying lead and blood as the story races to its explosive final showdown that takes place on Christmas Eve and fills more or less the last forty pages of the book.

Paul Bedford tells his story mostly from Rance Toller’s point of view, although he does occasionally switch to Angie or the lead regulator Bodeen. Rance’s favourite weapon is a shotgun and Bodeen’s a Sharps, the destruction to human flesh from these is described quite graphically, which perfectly fits in with the tough storyline.

On the strength of this, and his earlier book, Paul Bedford has firmly established himself a position in with my favourite BHW writers and I thoroughly recommend his work to those who enjoy action-packed westerns.

The Devil's Work has an official release date of May 31st but is available now from all the usual Internet bookstores.