3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A bit more than the typical paperback Western..., January 6, 2006
This review is from: Apache Storm (Paperback)
Okay...no one has reviewed this yet, the first in a trilogy (the trilogy itself part of a larger "family series" I've never read), so I thought I'd drop a few lines and maybe help a few curious readers.
It's basically the story of of a young Army officer sent West to battle Apaches while the Civil War is raging back East. Every other chapter or so is given to a renegade Apache whose quest for vengeance parallels our hero's and will of course eventually lead them to a showdown in the trilogy's climax.
I'm a sucker for anything with Apaches, so I'm a bit partial, but Apache Storm is better than most straight-to-paper Westerns crowding Wal-Mart shelves (hey, I actually finished reading it). Cormac McCarthy it ain't, but it does offer a straight-ahead action story, with our hero's battles against Apaches and Army brass played out sort of like a Bernard Cornwell Sharpe novel minus the style, character development, and flair for hyper realism. It's packed with a lot of repetitive Apache history, obviously taken mainly from Thrapp, Opler, and Ball, that can be quickly skimmed over, which means you can thumb past page after page without missing out on plot stuff. What really sets the book apart from the pack is the level of violence, a lot of it inflicted on innocents by one of the main characters (the Apache, of course--though he is thankfully never presented as merely a bloodthirsty savage--though to say such a cardboard character is seen in a favorable light would be stretching the point). I've picked up the other two books in the series and will read them--and in the third book, the character of the Army officer seems to have become a rogue Apache hunter straight out of a spaghetti Western. A lot of Western purists would probably be angry at the way the book presents the historical Cochise in events that are entirely fictional--but, hey--it's a paperback Western, so deal with it.
Just go in with the right mind-set and you shouldn't be disappointed. It ain't Ulzana's Raid, but it's better than most paperback Westerns out there.
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