Review: Edge of Your Seat Action in the Old West
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 04 15, 2013
My dad is a huge fan of Western movies, and I grew up on a steady diet of John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, Jimmy Stuart and all the other greats battling it out with Indians on the high plains and in the deserts. BATTLE OF FORTUNE WELLS stands up against any of those stories, and the way Dan Chamberlain writes brings the people and places on the page to life.Chamberlain captured my attention from the first page, and the action just kept coming. I found myself putting this book down to do other things - like eat and tend to the cows - with great reluctance. Even when I was away from the story, the characters lingered. The period of history Chamberlain addresses is complicated, to say the least, and he does an admirable job of reflecting perspectives from both sides of the battle without pandering to either. As he did in THE LONG SHOOTERS, Chamberlain mixes in a hint of romance and weaves in bits of the character's pasts that leaves you wanting more. I'd love to know more about the relationship between Tomas Killain and Pony Johnson.If you read the Author's Note at the end of the book, you'll learn that Chamberlain found an obscure reference to Comanche Indians leaving the reservations in the 1870s to attack ranchers and buffalo hunters. It is from this tiny reference that he created BATTLE OF FORTUNE WELLS. To me, this is the heart of imagination: to take a slice of history and write a story that is quite believable.After reading THE LONG SHOOTERS, I waited impatiently for Chamberlain's next book, and at the end of BATTLE OF FORTUNE WELLS, I find myself tapping my foot again, hoping he'll find time to get his next book out soon! Five stars.