5.0 out of 5 stars
Best of the Curran Westerns, December 3, 2010
This review is from: Grim Riders (Paperback)
I really enjoyed this one. It was strictly a revenge/redemption story with no supernatural aspects, but it was quite good. Better than Skin Medicine in my opinion (though honestly, with a little work, the two books could have been merged). Don't worry, though, there are plenty of Curran-style bad guys doing horrible things, and plenty of on-screen violence. If you liked Skin Medicine and/or Skull Moon, you'll almost certainly enjoy this one, assuming you don't require monsters of the inhuman variety in the books you read. 5+ stars, all the way.
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1 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Your eyeballs will feel like frigid marbles in your skull you've been staring at the pages so long., September 6, 2008
This review is from: Grim Riders (Paperback)
For five years, Nathan Partridge languished in the Arizona Territorial Prison. All he had to keep him going was his wife, and $80,000 in hidden robbery money. Then his farmhouse burned down and his wife with it. Now he's busted out to claim what's his. Only the money's gone. The trail leads to Dead Creek, and possibly his wife, who might not be so dead as first thought. But it's a trail painted in blood, for Partridge is a hunted man--by desperadoes, by bounty hunters, and by the law. There's a relentless federal marshal hounding him and two deranged Virginia man hunters whose favorite prey is human. But Partridge's most desperate enemy might be his sadistic, homicidal father. Things are about to get ugly in Dead Creek...
"...A bleak and moody novel that amply showcases Curran's love of genre fiction and also his understanding of the dark side of human nature. In Curran's skilled hands, Grim Riders becomes more than a traditional western, seamlessly incorporating the flavor of darker genres, and bringing to mind in a cinematic sense, the best of Spaghetti Westerns and even to a degree, the complex moral challenges of classic Kurosawa samurai tales. Thought-provoking and wildly entertaining throughout, Grim Riders is genre fiction at its best. Not to be missed."--Greg F. Gifune, author of Night Work and The Bleeding Season
"...Curran recreates the old West as it most probably was, but we're too ashamed to admit. Characters that reach up out of the pages, stinking of sweat, gunsmoke and liquor and punch you in the face as you read. Action which will have you sweating, fingers rigid on the pages, a storyline so compelling your eyeballs will feel like frigid marbles in your skull you've been staring at the pages so long. Such is the power, the lividness of Tim's writing. Grim Riders will create in you a love for the western genre, it's fresh, harsh, tragic, brutal at times, but always entertaining, simply astonishing fiction. All I can say is: Tim, give me more!"--James R. Cain, editor Dark Animus Magazine
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