Hell Town Shootout - Edward A. Grainger (David Cranmer)

The dependably entertaining author Edward A. Grainger (aka the astute editor and publisher David Cranmer) returns with HELL TOWN SHOOTOUT, a new tale featuring Deputy U.S. Marshal Gideon Miles. Grainger plunges right into the action with this one, which finds Miles in the appropriately named settlement of Hell Town, Wyoming, to take a gang of bank robbers into custody. He finds himself ambushed instead and is forced to hole up in the local hotel with a dwindling supply of ammunition as the gang lays siege to the place. But even though he's outnumbered, outgunned, and faced with treachery within as well as a savage assault from outside, it never pays to underestimate Gideon Miles...

Grainger does a great job with the almost non-stop action of this tale, told in appropriately terse and tough prose, then elevates it to an even higher level with a lengthy epilogue that delves deeper into the character of Gideon Miles. Over the past few years, the Cash Laramie/Gideon Miles series by Grainger and several other authors has produced some of the best hardboiled Westerns being written today. HELL TOWN SHOOTOUT is a fine addition to the series. If you've read the others, you'll want to read this one, too, and if you haven't, HELL TOWN SHOOTOUT would serve as an excellent introduction. Highly recommended.