Review - Savage Sunday - 5 stars

The William Johnstone group with help from J.A. Johnstone have  hit a new high in the Savage Sunday novel.  It is mainly a western but a good part love story. It is also part of god guys versus bad guys and a $65,000 embezzlement, robbery, and murder.  If you think this is an adventure novel, you’d be right on target in that thought.

Duff MacCallister is the main male protagonist.  He is a cattle rancher who was originally from Scotland and maintains his Scottish brogue. His partner, in many ways, is the main female protagonist, Megan Parker.  But if you think she is a shrinking beauty, you’d be only half right—beautiful she is but very accomplished in many aspects.  This is befitting, as this story is set mostly in and around Chugwater and Cheyenne, Wyoming where women were first given the right to vote.

Two other savory characters make up MacCallister’s retinue – named Elmer and Wang Chow. The addition of a Chinese character shows open thinking about ethnic issues.  There is also Black Liberty, a black man.  So a rather different cast of characters appear in the book along with cameos from the Wyoming Territorial Governor than in a traditional Western.  

The ends and outs of a cattle sale, depositing money into a bank; having it disappear; the bank president maybe commit suicide. A derelict stable hand becoming a newspaper reporter sort of rounds out the story except for a gang of cut throats and murders who want a share of the disappearing money.

It ia good who-done-it story and will keep the reader guessing.  All is not what it seems.  Got to read this delightful book to find out and be
rewarded with the knowledge.  

Review - Churchill's Secret Messenger - 5 stars

 

Following the trials and tribulations of a group of British SOE agents sent into occupied France during the height of the Second World War makes for very interesting reading.  This historical novel entitled Churchill’s Secret Messenger by Alan Hlad is a gripping story of those secrete agents sent to spy,  sabotage and reconnoiter in the Paris area. The book’s subtitle of WW2 Novel of Spies & French Resistance is also very descriptive and the three Special Operations Executives (SOE) sent were to work with the Resistance.

Getting selected for any of the SOE activities was notoriously difficult and the training grueling.  There are three agents who are followed closely in the novel, but the focus is mostly on Rose a most unlikely candidate.  Her two main desirable characteristics are her indomitable desire to see the Nazis defeated and perhaps, more mundane but equally important, her fluency in French.

Rose was working in a top-secret basement bunker as a typist when she caught the attention of Winston Churchill. He took a fancy to her and pushed for her to complete the grueling, arduous  training. She does finish, barely and earns the codename
Dragonfly.

She and her two compatriots Muriel and Felix parachute into France where they are met by the French Resistance.  One of the French fighters is Lazare Aron, a Jewish man, who escaped being shipped off by the Nazis with complicity of the French police. His parents were not so lucky.

In keeping with good novel action, Rose and Lazare fall in love although there is much standing in their way of happiness.  Capture and torture is often a byproduct of being a spy and that happens in this case.  Many individuals in the novel are killed or wounded over the course of time until D-day and liberation. 

Rose is tested in many ways but perhaps the most intense is one that will put her personal feelings to the test against justifying the faith that the Prime Minister and the British High Command have exhibited in her.

A wonderful read made more compelling to those who did not live in those years but interested not so much in the damage and destruction of WWII and its aftermath but in the very human people who made things happen – for good and for bad.

Review - Bone Rattle - 5 stars

 Marc Cameron has created an intriguing novel of suspense in Bone Rattle following the exploits of U.S. Marshal Arliss Cutter. The novel is set in Alaska and involves many of the current issues in dealing with Native American artifacts but also the illegal mining activities.

The two come together when a torso without head, hands, or feet washes ashore  near
Anchorage. Things seem a bit out of control with Cutter’s deputy, Lola Teariki, and he are assigned not tracking down fugitives but assigned to provide protection for a high-profile drug case.  As Marshals this is not their preferred activity –much too sedate for them.

However, as the case unfolds, there is plenty to meet their desire for action. There are several converging storylines that include murder, conspiracy, assault, and stealing Native American artifacts with intent to sell.

The fast-paced action is a real page-turner and once the reader begins it will be hard to put down as there are exciting happenings on every page. Other noted writers like C. J. Box and Mark Greaney agree this is an exciting read.  Cameron, himself, was a deputy marshal and provides the depth that such an intriguing case deserves.

Review - Shoot-Out at Sugar Creek - 4 stars

 

Shoot-Out at Sugar Creek by Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins is a different kind of book than one might expect form Spillane.  It is an intriguing Western genre book along the lines of many other similar ones.

Character development is pretty well done but perhaps a bit stereotypical in who is doing what and why. Caleb York is small town marshal and county sheriff in Trinidad, New Mexico. He dresses sort of like a stereotypical dandy, but he carries and knows how to use the Colt .44 in his gun belt. He was a former Wells Fargo detective and a very successful on.

In town, he is sweet on rancher named Willa Cullen and that feeling seems to be reciprocated.  But trouble is brewing to as pressure on this romance in the form of another woman rancher named Hammond who has recently taken over after her husband died. She is a land-hog and after a severe winter and great die off of cattle controls the only clean water stream in the area…Sugar Creek. 

A potential range war between the ladies seems imminent and Marshal York is caught between two beautiful women here as well as a saloon owner, equally beautiful, who also desires his company.  With all the romantic entanglements, potential range war, hired guns, and more becomes an intriguing story. The story full of love, deceit, and finally death is one that is hard to put down.