Clancy's Last War

By Terrell L. Bowers

Hale, January 2013

Some crimes are too heinous to go unpunished. Morgan Clancy seeks the man responsible for the deaths of a great number of men, including his younger brother. When the trail leads him to Bluestone Creek, Colorado, his search for justice becomes entwined with the plight of several farmers and one local rancher.

Clancy’s battle escalates when his meddling uncovers a theft of cattle and endangers the lives of a young woman, her sister and father. The stakes are lethal and when the final battle comes, Clancy discovers his trail of vengeance may cost all four of them their lives….

Terrell L. Bowers combines the bringing to justice of war criminals with the more traditional storyline of a land grab. The war crimes were committed in Andersonville where prisoners were robbed and killed at will. With only the camp commander Henry Wirz looking set to pay Clancy’s sets out to bring to justice other prison guards who were responsible for his brother’s death and many others.

Terrell L. Bowers also includes a young woman who has Downs Syndrome, something that is rarely seen in a western. Her child-like innocence leading to some touching moments, and she will have an important part to play in the final showdown between Clancy and those he hunts.

The book is written in an easy to read style and moves forward at great pace. Characters and landscapes are well described as are the many action sequences. As the story heads towards what seems like a predictable end Terrell L. Bowers springs a superb surprise to the identity of one of the characters giving the story a neat twist-in-the-tail.

As with the other books I’ve read by this author I’m left looking forward to his next.

Invite to a Showdown

By Terrell L. Bowers

Hale, July 2012

After a bizarre double killing forces her into exile, Rowena Jansen is living like a hermit in Keylock, Colorado, and concentrating on survival.

Travis Clay went off to war and witnessed the terrible suffering of men and his country. Afterwards, he joined his friend to work on a ranch, but when a deadly ambush costs Clay a herd of cattle and leaves him near death, he sets out to find the men responsible.

Inadvertently ending up in Keylock, his fate is joined with that of Rowena. Four men are searching for her, intent on a killing, while Travis is on the trail of five or six murdering rustlers. The only way to win such a war is to invite both sides to a showdown.

Terrell L. Bowers begins this book by telling two separate stories, both running parallel to each other before converging on a collision course. First we meet Rowena and witness her struggle to survive as an Indian captive, before being freed to live with an aging buffalo hunter. During this part of the book Bowers switches between Rowena’s life trials and those of Travis, each of their stories providing fascinating reading and bringing them into conflict with two different groups of men.

It soon becomes obvious that Rowena and Travis will become romantically involved and that relationship is neatly, and believably, brought about. But, of course, there’s the killers to deal with too and Bowers comes up with an excellent solution to this that closes the book with style and provides another problem for one of the lead characters that left a grin on my face.

Like the other books I’ve read by Terrell L. Bowers I found this difficult to put down and felt I’d been thoroughly entertained by the end. Once more I’ve been left looking forwards to his next book.

Invite to a Showdown is officially released today.

If you decide to search for this book on American Amazon without going through the link above (left one) please note the wrong spelling of the authors last name.

No Quarter at Devil's Fork

By Terrell L. Bowers

A Black Horse Western from Hale, July 2011

When a crazed outlaw named Chilly Lloyd instigates a heinous crime, it seals the fate of seven other men. Now two friends, Brett Jackson and Reggie Satterfield, put aside their journey to a peaceful life and set out to bring the killers to justice.

Stella Burdette has never had much luck but hope for better things when she agrees to run a chuck wagon for eight hunters, including Chilly Lloyd. Soon, though, she must run for her life. And then Brett and Reggie fall into a deadly trap and are doomed to discover there is No Quarter at Devil’s Fork.

This book is packed with incident, all told in an easy to read style that sees the author telling his story through the eyes of a number of different characters, such as those mentioned in the above blurb. The action is first rate and the dialogue crackles, there’s plenty of humour too, often combined with the tall-tales Satterfield delights in telling whenever possible.

A neat touch to me was that one of the hunters doesn’t have the same attitude as his companions, not falling in line with the others when they rape and kill, in fact he’s sicken by it all, but family blood forces him to stay with them and he has to make a difficult decision later in the book.

Also it’s great to see that the cover art actually depicts a scene from the book, a moment of brutality that makes for a powerful ending for one of the characters.

Terrell L. Bowers is fast becoming one of my favourite BHW writers and this book has left me eagerly looking forward to his next. In the meantime I’m going to be searching through storage for any others I may have.

No Quarter at Devil’s Fork is officially released this coming Friday (the 29^th July), but is already available to buy from the usual Internet sources. 

Ambush at Lakota Crossing

By Terrell L. Bowers

A Black Horse Western from Hale, January 2011

Lakota Crossing was manned by two old codgers and was fifty miles from the nearest town. It had always been the perfect place for an ambush. But when Wayland Lott and his gang of killers planned to rob an army payroll at its way station, they had no idea that one of those men had a bounty hunter on his trail.

Bounty hunting was not the sort of life Jess Logan had expected after the war. He’d had a bit of luck and even earned a reputation, but his luck ran out in Missouri when he ran into the worst blizzard on record. So Logan took a job at the stage stop at Lakota Crossing to finish the out the winter there…and when the bandit gang began warring, Jess jumped straight into the action, regardless of the consequences….

Terrell L. Bowers starts this story by having Jess Logan help rescue a group of Indian women and children from freezing to death in one of the worst snowstorms in history. Logan is rewarded for his bravery by the band’s chief by being given a young woman to do with as he wishes. This leads to many humorous moments, as Logan sure doesn’t want to be responsible for Pale Flower. It seems the Indians are glad to be rid of her as she’s seen to be bad luck. As the story progresses Bowers begins to hint that Pale Flower may not be all she seems, and when she attacks a white man with a shovel more questions arise that help hook the reader into story.

There’s not a lot of gun-action in the first half of the book but this is were Bowers expertly pulls the reader into the story, introduces his cast of well-drawn characters and has you believing that Logan is more than a match for the outlaws. Unbeknown to both reader and hero the outlaws have an ace-in-the-hole that will prove to be a surprising problem that could easily see the outlaws steal the army payroll without any difficulty. The second half of the tale is nearly all action as the outlaws take over Lakota Crossing and their ambush is set.

Of course good triumphs over bad in the end as is the case in just about every BHW I’ve read, and here Terrell L. Bowers brings this about in a fast moving and entertaining tale – the first part of which is based around a true incident.

Ambush at Lakota Crossing has an official release date of the end of the month but is available now from a number of Internet bookstores.

Death Comes Riding

by Terrell L. Bowers
A Black Horse Western from Hale, September 2009

Lucas usually avoided contact with the Indians, but fate sometimes stepped in. When a simple job turns out to be a death ride, his relationship with one Indian in particular changes his life forever.

In the midst of an impending war between the assembled tribes of the Black Hills and the army, Lucas partners Daniel Books, a half-Cheyenne who doesn’t really belong on either side of the war. Daniel helps Lucas seek out the men who robbed and shot him, and left him for dead.

Then there is Iris Ducane, the girl who captured Lucas’s heart, already being courted by Captain Bagot, a suave Creole Frenchman from the nearby fort, who wants her for himself…and he is willing to kill Lucas to win her hand!

Set against a backdrop of the coming together of the tribes and the Battle of the Little Big Horn, Terrell L. Bowers packs a lot into Death Comes Riding. His characters are well created and his dialogue is well written, including lots of grin inducing sarcasm, particularly when Iris and her uncle discuss the differences between men and women. There’s plenty of action as Lucas attempts to retrieve a stolen payroll and expose an insurance scam. The contrasts between Lucas and Captain Bagot provide some fascinating reading, which ends in an exciting duel between the two men.

I’m surprised I haven’t read anything by Terrell L. Bowers before as he’s been writing westerns for quite sometime having quite a long list of books published by Hale. More of his work has been published in America by Avalon (seemingly a series set in Broken Spoke, and one of these books has been published by Leisure too). Reckon it’s time to see what else I can find.

Death Comes Riding has an official release date of September 30th, and I’d suggest getting your order in soon, before this one sells-out, as it’s already on sale at the usual Internet booksellers.