Veteran author and editor Keith Chapman has just released a new edition of one of his early novels under the Chap O’Keefe pseudonym, THE SHERIFF AND THE WIDOW. This is excellent news for me, because while I’ve read most of Chapman’s Westerns, this is one I hadn’t read. So I dived in with great anticipation and was not disappointed.
The lawman of the title is Ross Kemp, sheriff of the cattle town of Cedar City. The widow isn’t actually a widow when the book begins. She’s Jessica Blackwood, the beautiful, scheming second wife of local cattle baron Boyd Blackwood. Also in the mix are Blackwood’s beautiful daughter by his first wife, a scheming gambler, and a no-account cowboy who fancies himself a fast gun.
Well, naturally, there’s a murder (the title kind of gives that away) and Ross Kemp winds up framed for it. He’s convicted and sent to prison, and the only way to clear his name is to bust out and hunt down the real killer.
Most hardboiled Westerns are crime novels, and THE SHERIFF AND THE WIDOW continues that tradition with characters and a plot that would have been right at home in a classic Gold Medal paperback. Ross Kemp is an excellent protagonist, plenty tough but far from superhuman, the widow is a fine femme fatale, and the other villains are plenty dastardly. The story races along in breakneck fashion, with the prison break being a particularly suspenseful and action-packed scene. I really enjoyed this one, and if you’re a fan of traditional Westerns, you can get the e-book right here for just about any platform you can think of, or the print edition here.
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