Customer Reviews

Deathwalk

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This ia about Ben Thompson, a gambler, shootist and a lawman. It dawns on him one day that he has really nothing good to be remembered for and decides to run for Marshall of Austin. He, of course wins, and is soon making people follow the law. The story jumps about with him leaving Austin two different times. He is true to his friends and this gets him in trouble more than once. Was not Marshall long and decided to quit, has not happy doing the job. Book was a little slow to me with several dead pages. Think Braun has done better.

This is another tale of the old West from Matthew Braun,and like most of his novels is based on the career of an actual Western luminary,in this case Ben Thompson.Thompson,as described by Braun with the air of slightly musty pedanticicm that is coming to inform much of his research these days,was a widely regarded and exceptionally skilled gambler and a feared shootist who ,having carved out a substantial reputation in both trades in Denver and Dodge City settles in Austin and becomes a prominent club owner with at least one foot in "polite society"
His marriage to "Catherine"is stable and they have a teenage son.

Austin accepts its sporting district,known as "Guy Town",as long as it does not intrude on the right side of the tracks and the games are honest and above board,something about which Thompson is adamant.

Thompson attends a performance of "Macbeth"and something about the play causes him to re-evaluate his life and career.He opts to run for town marshall where he operates a prototype zero tolerance policy

The novel's main focus is on his career in the law enforcement business and the strains placed on him both publically and privately

The result is an enjoyable read with some good historical background on frontier towns in transition to a more stable and settled way of life,

I was always nagged while reading the book however that the book maybe could have gone that bit deeper.Braun ,in his earlier books had an edge to the depiction of Western legends that seems missing these days and the result lacks the bite he would have brought to the tale say 20 years ago