Keith Hetherington was one of the best and most prolific of the Australian Western writers who turned out hundreds of books for Cleveland Publishing Company, and the fine folks at Piccadilly Publishing are doing a top-notch job of making his books available for a new generation of readers as well as for long-time fans of Hetherington’s work like myself.
One of the latest releases I read as an ARC is JUST A JOHNNY REB, which will be available August 1 as half of a double volume along with LEGACY OF THE COUGAR. It was published originally by Cleveland in 1996 under Hetherington’s most common pseudonym Kirk Hamilton. The Johnny Reb of the title is Laramie Coyle, a former Confederate soldier who would be content to leave the war behind him, but not everyone is willing to do that. A clash with a Northerner results in a gunfight that leaves a man dead and earns Coyle a mortal enemy whose efforts at revenge dog his trail.
Eventually, to repay an elderly couple who help him out, Coyle takes on the job of finding another former Confederate who was a prisoner of war in a Union prison camp. The trail leads him to San Antonio, Texas, where he runs into more trouble from the Reconstruction forces occupying the town, as well as getting mixed up with a rancher who’s determined the South will rise again, even if it means restarting the war.
As always in a Keith Hetherington novel, there’s plenty of well-written action. He was one of the best at fistfights and shootouts, giving them a suitably gritty and realistic feel. The plot is solid, and Laramie Coyle is a good protagonist. The little bit of romance that crops up in the novel is handled well, too.
I enjoyed JUST A JOHNNY REB, and if you’re a fan of traditional Westerns, I think there’s a good chance you will, too. You can pre-order it at Smashwords, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and Bookshop.org.
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