Better Off Dead

SHAWN O’BRIEN #3

By William W. Johnstone with J.A. Johnstone

Pinnacle Books, March 2016

On the West Texas border a behemoth is bellowing smoke, fire, and death. This monster is the infamous Abaddon Cannon Foundry, whose weapons of war have spread death and destruction around the world – and made a few men in Big Buck, Texas, incredibly rich. Now, a Mexican-born teenager has disappeared into this fortress factory, where men work and sweat as slaves. This boy’s sister wants to learn her brother’s fate, and she happens to know a man named Shawn O’Brien, the Town Tamer.

Shawn rides to Texas to find the missing boy. What he discovers in Big Buck will spark a ferocious, bloody battle with the greatest evil the West has ever known: masters of war who laugh in the face of anyone who defies them. Until Shawn O’Brien raises his six-gun. Then the laughing stops.

The Shawn O’Brien books are a spin-off series from The Brother’s O’Brien series and one of the other brothers will have a major part to play in this book, this being Jacob O’Brien.

Jacob goes undercover into the Foundry and will witness some horrific scenes that illustrate what many imagine Hell to be like. These very descriptive and visual passages bringing to mind the art of painters such as Jacob Isaacsz van Swanenburgh and Pieter Bruegel.

The book also seems to borrow from the steampunk genre too in the clothing that those who support the Foundry wear and the weapons that they are developing. I don’t really want to say any more about those weapons so as not to spoil the story for anyone aiming to read it, but these weapons are of interest to leaders of European countries as it seems conflict there is becoming inevitable.

With the Foundry run by a seemingly madman with an army behind him, never mind weapons of the like the West has never seen before, the odds against the two O’Brien brothers and their small band of allies being able to succeed in their mission is extremely doubtful from the start.

If you want a violent, action packed read where human life is seen as disposable on a madman’s whim, then this very fast paced story should be right at the top of your reading list.

Manslaughter

SHAWN O’BRIEN #2

By William W. Johnstone with J.A. Johnstone

Pinnacle, March 2015

In Broken Bridle, Wyoming, Jeremiah Purdy, the town’s tinhorn sheriff is a college kid who wants to become governor some day. But outlaw Burt Becker couldn’t care less about anyone else’s ambitions. With Becker holding Broken Bridle in a bloody grip of terror, Purdy sends a desperate cry for help – to Shawn O’Brien, town tamer. Shawn’s mission: ride to Wyoming and pry Broken Bridle loose from Becker’s reign of fear. What Shawn finds is that something even more evil than Becker is haunting Broken Bridle. Now, in a storm of bullets and blood, in a deal with the devil, Shawn O’Brien can only tame this town by entering hell itself…

You want plenty of action? An involving plot that charges forward at the speed of a galloping horse? A storyline full of twists and turns, one of which that could be as equally at home in a horror novel? Demented bad guys with an army of killers? Draw-fighters aplenty? Good-guys escaping their own demons? Fear? Lies? How-they-gonna-get-outta-that situations? Fistfights? Gunfights? Gritty writing that demands your attention? Then this book is a must read!

The author brings together an excellent cast of characters, many of whom I hoped just might, somehow, escape the grip of terror, and high death-toll that plagues Broken Bridle, to perhaps appear in future Johnstone books. Who can forget the twins, assassins who’ve never failed to take out their target? And Becker’s gunman, Caradas? Deputy United States Marshal Brown with his bullish ways? The Chinese? The women? Thomas Clouston riding his massive horse whilst wielding a battle-axe like someone from a Frank Frazetta painting? And the strawmen – I still shudder whilst thinking about them.

Like the previous Shawn O’Brien book, Town Tamer, this delves into the darker side of humanity, where greed is all that matters and life is cheap. Where madness is the driving force and death feeds well. It seems Broken Bridle is destined to become a ghost town and that O’Brien cannot possibly stop this from happening. Does he? I guess you’re going to have to read the book to find out because I can’t answer that here and thus spoil the book for those who are yet to read it. What I will say is that I’m really looking forward to discovering just what horrors await Shawn O’Brien in the third book of the series, Better Off Dead, which I believe is scheduled for release next February.

Shawn O'Brien, Town Tamer

By William W. Johnstone with J. A. Johnstone

Pinnacle, March 2014

Unlike his brothers Jacob, Sam and Patrick, Shawn O’Brien isn’t content to settle down on the family ranch in New Mexico territory. With his razor-sharp eye, lightning-fast draw, and burning thirst for justice, Shawn is carving out a reputation of his own. As a town tamer he takes the most dangerous, lawless towns in the West and makes them safe for decent men, women, and children.

When a stagecoach accident leaves Shawn stranded in Holy Rood, Utah, it doesn’t take long to realize he’s landed in one ornery circle of hell. Ruled by a cruel and cunning crook-turned-merciless dictator named Hank Cobb, Holy Rood is about as unholy place as any on the frontier. Anyone who breaks Cobb’s rules is severely punished. Anyone who defies Cobb’s hooded henchmen dies by rope, stake, or guillotine.

But Shawn O’Brien isn’t just anyone. He’s the town tamer. And this time, he’s going to paint the town red…

This is the first book in another new series from the Johnstone’s. Shawn O’Brien, Town Tamer is a spin-off from the series The Brothers O’Brien.

The stagecoach ride into Holy Rood along a road lined with human skulls sets the mood of this book perfectly. The destruction of the coach sees its occupants thrust into a living hell that painted all sorts of vivid images within my mind. Cobb’s plays on peoples’ fears of witches, and the wrath of God, to spectacular effect for his own greed.

The horrific acts O’Brien witnesses and learns about fuel his resolve to destroy the hold Cobb has over the citizens of Holy Rood and this all means this book is packed full of exciting action which also reveal some strange goings on too, such as how can a dead man be living again?

The author switches between characters often. As well as some excellent male roles there are some terrific female leads too, such as Sally, a girl O’Brien saves from being burned at the stake. Of the male characters I would single out Mink Morrow, a going blind gunfighter, as one of the best. A man who you’re never quite sure whose side he’s going to support, if any.

At the beginning of this book O’Brien isn’t a town tamer but it’s after the violent acts in Holy Rood that he decides this is something he could be good at and this sets up the theme for the coming books in the series, books that I fully intend on reading.