Review Roundup: The Quick and the Dying

Wolf Creek Book 7: The Quick and the Dying
By Ford Fargo
Western Fictioneers, August 2013
$8.09 paperback, ISBN 0615887309
$2.99 Kindle, ASIN B00F6B4KX6
$2.99 other e-formats, ISBN 9781301457243
118 pages

The last time former outlaw leader Sampson Quick encountered his old gang, he had to kill a couple of the ingrates to convince them he was out of the business for good. Now the notorious Hounds gang is back, looking for Quick’s help with a raid on Wolf Creek’s bank — and they’re not inclined to take “no” for an answer.

Since his arrival a few short months ago, the good folks of Wolf Creek have embraced Quick, whom they know as effete British painter James Reginald De Courcey. They consider him a mite odd, but mostly harmless. If only they knew….

The Quick and the Dying, the seventh book in the Wolf Creek series, seems almost a transitional piece. Things have settled down a bit in town now that the Kiowa are talking peace, the gang of leftover border ruffians that terrorized everyone in books 1 and 5 have been dispatched once and for all, and the megalomaniacal rancher nearby was handed his hat, at least temporarily.

Nothing is ever as it seems in Wolf Creek, though. Even the peace isn’t very peaceful, as town drunk Rupe Tingley discovers when the mugging he’s trying to avoid turns into accidental arson. Tingley’s creator, Matthew Mayo, does a remarkable job of conveying a drunk’s alcoholic haze in the first chapter. While the flophouse in which he lives burns around him, Tingley descends into an imaginary hell of flashbacks interspersed with eerie lightning strikes of clarity in the present. By the time De Courcey shocks the entire town by singlehandedly dragging Tingley from the inferno, readers will be ready to hop on the sobriety wagon themselves.

From there, the story departs into a rattlesnake’s nest of plots, subplots, counterplots, double-dealing, and assorted intrigue that is nothing short of dizzying. Quick/De Coursey (written by Kerry Newcomb) and his dilemma, which form the spine of the tale, rapidly recede behind a handful of other schemers who seem to be laying foundations for double-crosses in the future. Chief schemer to watch: photographer Wilson Marsh, who’s scummier than ever before. In Marsh, Jackson Lowry has created a skin-crawling everyday evil that fascinates.

Except for town marshal Sam Gardner (Troy Smith) and deputy Seamus O'Connor (Wayne Dundee), the point-of-view characters in The Quick and the Dying are ones who haven’t been heard from in a while. In addition to De Coursey, Tingley, and Marsh, bounty hunter Rattlesnake Jake (Phil Dunlap) is back and as casually intimidating as ever. Frank Roderus’s barber John Hix continues his understated channeling of Sweeney Todd in the Old West. By the time all the unusual suspects finish laying their plans and forming unholy alliances at the climax, a shootout in the bank should be the least of anyone’s concerns.

The Quick and the Dying ties up one loose series thread quite tidily. At the same time, the book opens so many new cans of worms that the writers should have enough bait for years. How all of the new threads ravel ought to be interesting to watch.


Kathleen Rice Adams is a Texan, a voracious reader, a professional journalist, and an author. She received a review copy of Wolf Creek Book 7: The Quick and the Dying from the publisher. Her opinions are her own and are neither endorsed nor necessarily supported by Western Fictioneers or individual members of the organization. Links in the review are for convenience only; they do not produce affiliate revenue.

Western Awards Galore

Once again this year the Western Writers of America have honored several members of Western Fictioneers in the annual Spur Awards Competition. Matthew P. Mayo's novel TUCKER'S RECKONING was the winner of the Spur Award for Best Short Western Novel. In the category of Best Mass Market Paperback Original, Larry Sweazy's THE COYOTE TRACKER was the winner, and James Reasoner's REDEMPTION: HUNTERS was one of the finalists. Lori Van Pelt's story "The Day Delgado Rode In", published in the anthology OUTLAWS AND LAWMEN, was a finalist in the Best Western Short Fiction category.

The biggest honor was reserved for Jory Sherman, recipient of the prestigious Owen Wister Award for Lifetime Achievement. This makes a clean sweep for Jory, who last year received the first Lifetime Achievement Award from Western Fictioneers. Congratulations from WF to Jory and all the other winners and finalists in this year's Spur Awards!

Now Available on the Nook

Wolf Creek: Murder in Dogleg City Now Available at Amazon

Welcome back to Wolf Creek.

Here you will find many of your favorite authors, working together as Ford Fargo to weave a complex and textured series of Old West adventures like no one has ever seen. Each author writes from the perspective of his or her own unique character, blended together into a single novel.

In our latest adventure: Dogleg City is what folks in Wolf Creek call the seedy part of town. Life is cheap there, and death is common. At first this murder seemed like any other –but the more Marshal Sam Gardner and his deputies learn about it, the more it seems this death will blow Wolf Creek wide open…

About the author: Beneath the mask, Ford Fargo is not one but a posse of America's leading western authors who have pooled their talents to create a series of rip-snortin', old fashioned sagebrush sagas. Saddle up. Read ‘em Cowboy! These are the legends of Wolf Creek.

Appearing as Ford Fargo in this installment: L. J. Washburn, Matthew P. Mayo, Phil Dunlap, Chuck Tyrell, Jerry Guin, & Troy D. Smith

    Coming soon for the Nook at Barnes and Nobles

Six-guns and Slay Bells: A Creepy Cowboy Christmas

 

Now Available

Put on your Santa hat and saddle up for this collection of creepy Christmas stories from the Western Fictioneers, the world's only organization of professional authors devoted solely to Western fiction. 'Tis the season for ghosts, vampires, monsters, aliens, and other bizarre creatures to make these Old West holiday tales truly special. Legendary Western author Robert J. Randisi spins the spectral yarn of "Sheriff Santa and the Ghost of Two Gun Jim". Peacemaker and Spur Award winning author Troy D. Smith takes the reader on a murderous Christmas journey to "Bitter Mountain". New York Times bestseller and Peacemaker Award winner James Reasoner writes about a strange encounter on the Staked Plains in "Presents for One and All". Larry D. Sweazy, two-time winner of the Will Rogers Medallion Award for Western fiction, tells the story of an epic battle between good and evil in "The Longest Night". An isolated stagecoach station under siege by Apaches is the setting of Cheryl Pierson's "The Keepers of Camelot", a tale of rebirth and redemption. These and many other stories by some of today's top writers in the Western field make SIX-GUNS AND SLAY BELLS the most unusual Western Christmas anthology ever published.

SIX-GUNS AND SLAY BELLS is the newest anthology from the Western Fictioneers.  Founded in 2010 to promote the oldest genuine American art form, WF is the only writers organization composed entirely of professional authors of traditional Western fiction.  Its worldwide membership includes best-selling, award-winning authors as well as the brightest up-and-coming new stars in the Western field.

SIX-GUNS AND SLAY BELLS is a collection of 15 Christmas-themed original Western stories with paranormal elements including ghosts, vampires, monsters, and aliens. The best-selling, award-winning line-up of authors includes Robert J. Randisi, Chuck Tyrell, Troy D. Smith, C. Courtney Joyner, Matthew P. Mayo, Douglas Hirt, James Reasoner, Jerry Guin, Charlie Steel, Clay More, Cheryl Pierson, Larry D. Sweazy, James J. Griffin, Christine Matthews, and L.J. Washburn.

Western Fictioneers previously published THE TRADITIONAL WEST, the largest anthology of all-original Western fiction ever published, which met with critical acclaim and included the Best Short Fiction winners of both the Peacemaker Award, given by WF, and the Spur Award, given by the Western Writers of America, as well as several other finalists for those awards.  Earlier this year WF published BLOODY TRAIL, the first book in the Wolf Creek series of collaborative novels with more to come.

This is an anthology you're not going to want to miss. Trade paperback only $12.00 E book $2.99.

       Barnes & Noble

Wrong Town - Matthew P. Mayo

WRONG TOWN is a new e-book release of the first novel by Matthew P. Mayo, originally published as a Black Horse Western a few years ago. It's also the first book in the Roamer series and has a great opening as the narrator/protagonist, who goes by the name Roamer, is attacked while he's sleeping by a grizzly bear.

This is a very harrowing scene. It's not a big spoiler to say that Roamer survives his encounter with the bear, but then things get even worse. While he's still in bad shape from that battle, he's robbed and left a-foot by a couple of drifting outlaws. Despite everything that's happened to him, Roamer is stubborn and a survivor, and those qualities allow him to make it to the town of Tall Pine.

Where, you guessed it, things continue to get even worse.

In the great tradition of noirish Westerns by authors such as Lewis B. Patten and H.A. DeRosso, the town of Tall Pine is full of dark secrets, and Roamer finds himself being blamed for a murder he didn't commit. With nobody he can trust and with a truly despicable villain manipulating things, it's all he can do to stay alive and try to untangle the deadly web being woven around him.

WRONG TOWN has a solid plot and fine characters, but its strongest appeal is the narrative voice that Mayo gives to Roamer. Ugly enough to make babies cry and somewhat antisocial because of his appearance, Roamer is also highly intelligent and well-read, in addition to being pretty doggoned tough. He's a great character, and I'm glad there are more novels about him on the way. In the meantime, WRONG TOWN is a top-notch traditional Western yarn and well worth reading. -- James Reasoner