Nordic & Finn - Peter Brandvold

Anders Nordic is a big, bearded Scandinavian from Dakota Territory who’s working holding down a line camp on a ranch in New Mexico. He’s an unsociable sort, so the solitary life at the line camp suits him very well. But he has to go into the nearby town of Cimarron from time to time to pick up supplies, and once day while he’s in the settlement, he sees some boys picking on a stray dog. Anders likes dogs and maybe even senses a certain kinship with this one, so he puts a stop to the abuse and sends the scared youngsters scurrying away.

Unfortunately, one of the boys is the son of the local banker, whose pride and arrogance prompts him to try to have Anders arrested. This does not go well, and Anders’ simple impulse to carry out a good deed is instead the opening move in a series of increasingly bloody and tragic circumstances.

NORDIC & FINN is the latest novel and the first in a new series from Peter Brandvold, one of today’s most popular Western writers. He’s long been a favorite of mine, and he certainly doesn’t disappoint this time around. He writes action as well as anyone in the business and always creates compelling characters. Anders Nordic is a great protagonist, very likable despite his solitary nature, or maybe because of it since the reader gets to see him temper that self-imposed isolation in his developing relationships with Finn (the dog he rescues) and several humans who prove to be good friends.

However, this is a Brandvold book, so it’s not all warm fuzzies. The action is tough and unrelenting, and not everything turns out exactly as you might expect. It sure had me turning the pages to find out what was going to happen, and it even kept me up later than I intended in order to do just that, something that almost never happens these days. If you’re a Western fan, I give NORDIC & FINN a very high recommendation. It’s available from Wolfpack Publishing in e-book and trade paperback editions on Amazon, and it's one of the best books I’ve read this year. I’m looking forward to the next volume in the series.