Nobody writes Westerns quite like Ed Gorman. There’s little of the mythological West about them. Reading his novels, you get the feeling that if this wasn’t the way it really was, it sure could have been. And few authors have combined elements of crime and mystery fiction with the Western as successfully as he has.
Published by Berkley Books in 2003, this novel is set in Skylar, Colorado, where the town marshal, Lane Morgan, has an ongoing feud with the richest and most powerful man in town, Paul Webley, over a shot that Webley’s son took at the marshal while he was drunk. Webley is determined that his son won’t go to jail for this offense or even face charges, and this determination leads to blackmail and a murder in which Morgan’s wife – who is not without some secrets of her own – is the main suspect. That murder is only the first of several more deaths, though, before Morgan finally sorts everything out.
There’s not much action in RELENTLESS, but the action scenes that are there are very effective. There’s also plenty of rich characterization, a nice twisty plot, occasional flashes of humor, crisp prose, and the sort of bittersweet melancholy that’s a hallmark of nearly all of Ed Gorman’s fiction. This is an excellent novel.
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