Review: The wrong side of the law
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 10 17, 2013
Van Holt’s decidedly dark and edgy westerns make for some compelling reading. “A Few Dead Men” tackles the lawlessness of the American West in the form of a town being terrorized by a group of outlaws who are always one step ahead of legal retribution. The town’s only hope is retired lawman Ben Cobbett--if they can convince him to take up their cause, that is.The characters are what really bring this novel to life, whether it’s the arrogant Joe Deegan and his brawl-ready associates, the townspeople who run the gamut from railing against the outlaws to acting as accomplices, or the enigmatic Ben Cobbett himself. It’s interesting to see these less-than-perfect people and their methods of survival in a uniformly unfriendly environment. The bureaucratic and rarely helpful nature of official law enforcement on the frontier is an important theme throughout the book, yet plain and simple human nature goes a long way towards creating the formidable world of this novel.