Several years ago, James Robert Daniels published his first novel, THE COMANCHE KID, and accomplished a rare feat: he wrote a classic Western novel first time out of the gate. He followed that with a sequel, JANE FURY, that was almost as good. His third novel, SIX WHITE HORSES, will be released tomorrow, and I was fortunate enough to read an advance copy. I was hoping it would live up to the tradition of excellence Daniels has already established.
I’m happy to report that it does.
The narrator/protagonist of SIX WHITE HORSES is James Quinn, a Texas Ranger who became a lawman after fighting in the Civil War and then heading west to try life as a cowboy. Packing a star hasn’t necessarily been an improvement, however. When the book opens, he’s in pretty bad shape, having suffered serious bullet and knife wounds in the process of apprehending the notorious outlaw Cole Twist. But Quinn manages to make it to Corpus Christi (a town I know pretty well, by the way, and it rings true in Daniels’ version) with Twist as his prisoner. Twist gets locked up in the local jail, and Quinn lands in the hospital, where he meets the beautiful Quaker nurse/schoolteacher China Smallwood.
Quinn’s recuperation, his romance with China, his efforts to track down the rest of Twist’s gang, and the struggle to keep the colorful and charismatic but thoroughly evil owlhoot behind bars make up the rest of the novel. As in his previous books, Daniels makes good use of the traditional Western elements, but he raises SIX WHITE HORSES to a higher level with vivid, finely polished writing and compelling characters. James Quinn has a great voice, and you can’t help but like and root for him.
SIX WHITE HORSES may not be quite as good a book as THE COMANCHE KID—as I said, that one’s a classic—but it is a superb Western, and I give it a very high recommendation. It’ll be available tomorrow in e-book, paperback, and audio editions, but you can pre-order any of them now.
