Cash Laramie: Manhunter's Mountain - Wayne D. Dundee

David Cranmer continues to allow other authors to contribute to the on-going saga of U.S. Marshals Cash Laramie and Gideon Miles, and he couldn't have made a better choice for MANHUNTER'S MOUNTAIN than Wayne D. Dundee, who has rapidly vaulted into the top ranks of current Western writers.

The manhunter of the title is Arapaho-raised, hardnosed lawman Cash Laramie, who arrives in the dying mining town of Silver Gulch on the trail of a fugitive. He finds and arrests his quarry in pretty short order, but as it turns out, that's not his main challenge. There are other manhunters, too, and Cash's big job will be getting out of the mountains in the middle of a winter storm with some murderous miners and a ruthless bounty hunter on his trail. The two soiled doves he's trying to get back to civilization at the same time will only complicate matters.

Dundee keeps the action moving along at a rapid pace, and as always, Cash Laramie is a compelling character, a testament to Cranmer's creation of him in the first place. The supporting characters are interesting as well, and the fact that not everything turns out exactly as you might expect is an added bonus. So are the excellent descriptions of the landscape and the way the mountains and the weather almost become characters in their own right.

MANHUNTER'S MOUNTAIN is a fast, very entertaining novel, and I'm sure fans of Cash Laramie and of Westerns in general will thoroughly enjoy it. I certainly did.