Review: Book # 300 and Still Delivering The Goods
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 08 20, 2013
DANCING WITH DEAD MEN is James Reasoner's 300th published novel and continues an unbroken string of quality reads. By no means have I read even a good chunk of his work. But I have read novels and stories from all across his career and have yet to find one even remotely average. A remarkable achievement.This one finds a gunman, Logan Handley, struck down by an illness, infantile paralysis that leaves him with a weak left arm, his gun hand, and a right leg.He comes to Hot Springs in the hope the mineral springs can help him recover the use, at least some of it, of his withered limbs. A long time gun man such as himself has many enemies that would like to catch him in his weakened state.He finds much more in Hot Springs as he makes friends, to be blunt people he likely would never have hung out with in his more lucrative days.A bank robbery that he gets involved in, while trying to make a deposit, and thwarts when they want to use the 'cripple' as a shield reveals he hasn't lost as much as he thought.It also brings unwelcome attention and a job offer and he slowly slips back into his old life. An old enemy is on one side, just like the old days, but this time Logan learns he has more resources than he had once been able to call on.A very tightly written western. What one can always expect from Mr. Reasoner.