THE WESTWARD TIDE is a new series by Wayne D. Dundee and Mel
Odom, writing under the pseudonym Jack Tyree, and as you'd expect from those
two authors, it's top-quality entertainment.
TRAIL JUSTICE by Dundee launches the series, which is the story of a wagon train from Missouri bound for Oregon in 1848. Wagon trains have long been fertile ground for authors of Westerns and historical novels. I've written a few myself. They're a natural, with plenty of built-in drama and a wide variety of characters. You can tell almost any sort of story against the backdrop of a wagon train journeying across the plains.
Strong characters are the highlight of TRAIL JUSTICE. Towering mountain man Elwood Blake and young dandy Basil St. Irons serve as scouts for the wagon train and are the protagonists of this first novel, but wagonmaster Eugene Healy and his wife Ingrid, the Reverend Klevold, and villainous Morgan Velmont also make quite an impression. When a trio of plotters carry out murder and robbery a short time after the wagon train departs, Blake and St. Irons set out on their trail to bring them to justice. But while that's going on, Dundee also skillfully sets up some plot threads that are unresolved, so I suspect Odom will take those up in the next installment.
This has the makings of a really fine series, and I'm looking forward to the next book. For now, if you're a fan of strong, fast-moving historical Westerns, TRAIL JUSTICE gets a high recommendation from me.
TRAIL JUSTICE by Dundee launches the series, which is the story of a wagon train from Missouri bound for Oregon in 1848. Wagon trains have long been fertile ground for authors of Westerns and historical novels. I've written a few myself. They're a natural, with plenty of built-in drama and a wide variety of characters. You can tell almost any sort of story against the backdrop of a wagon train journeying across the plains.
Strong characters are the highlight of TRAIL JUSTICE. Towering mountain man Elwood Blake and young dandy Basil St. Irons serve as scouts for the wagon train and are the protagonists of this first novel, but wagonmaster Eugene Healy and his wife Ingrid, the Reverend Klevold, and villainous Morgan Velmont also make quite an impression. When a trio of plotters carry out murder and robbery a short time after the wagon train departs, Blake and St. Irons set out on their trail to bring them to justice. But while that's going on, Dundee also skillfully sets up some plot threads that are unresolved, so I suspect Odom will take those up in the next installment.
This has the makings of a really fine series, and I'm looking forward to the next book. For now, if you're a fan of strong, fast-moving historical Westerns, TRAIL JUSTICE gets a high recommendation from me.
1 comment:
Just finished watching THE TALL T and DECISION AT SUNDOWN. When I'm finished with Randolph Scott westerns I'll start on Jimmy Stewart, most notably THE NAKED SPUR and FIRECREEK.
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