Review: Don't Mess with ex-Sheriffs!
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 11 1, 2013
This is the second Van Holt Western I have read, and I think he's converting me! His mix of classic Western tropes with compelling modern characterizations, is really compelling. Here, Ben Cobbett is a retired sheriff who stops in a small town, only to be antagonized by the local bad guys. It turns out he has walked into a class Western plot--small town is terrorized by outlaws, and he is the reluctant gun-slinging hero who has to make up his mind whether to engage or not. What the outlaws don't realize, however, is that they should have buttoned up their shirts and put on their best Sunday manners rather than setting Cobbett off - he is revenge personified! Van Holt gets inside Cobett's head, but also the townsfolk and the bad guys, which makes both the story and the deaths (the many deaths) startling.  His vivid descriptions of place and action make me feel like I am right there. It is great stuff! Because he is interested in character and how places and circumstance affect people, his book (like the other one I read) also gives a sense of the tenuousness of life in the frontier west, and how that creates raw, edgy people in response. He's a really interesting author, and I'm looking forward to reading more.