In the mold of men like Bat Masterson and Wyatt Earp, M D "Shorty" Thompson is just that kind of lawman: Short on stature but tall on guts. Hand-picked by President Rutherford B. Hayes, he is one of best. And since United States Marshals of the 1870s handle desperados, this means just about everybody does seem to be using those strapped-down dragoons and wreaking havoc. For Marshal M D Thompson, its the life of a lawman.
There is saying in Western lore that has Missouri as the "Mother of Outlaws." But it is Texas, the "Paramour of Outlaws," to where desperados most often run. With her wide-open vastness and loosely patrolled frontiers, Texas is the coquette that loves and harbors the bad boy mother could no longer contain. Being a Texan, Marshal Thompson is fully aware of this when he reads President Hayes' wire ordering him to Texas and a den full of vipers otherwise known as rustlers and land grabbers.
"Revenge In Tascosa" paints the darkest side of the old west, sending the lawman into a Texas-sized, bloodthirsty feud. Along for the ride is Thompson long-time partner, James "Buffalo" Blackburn. Both are men of deeply held convictions, and neither one realizes that at the end of the trail in Texas are the killers of Blackburn's wife.
As for Tascosa--the local ranchers have grown tired waiting for the Texas Rangers who are few in number and embroiled in Southern boarder turmoil. Without hope of the Rangers or a response from Washington, the ranchers are banding together in a citizens uprising against the killers and rustlers that have been shooting them down, stealing the cattle and pillaging their homes. Enough is enough, and the Texans are getting ugly about it.
In the midst of this pathos is Sherilea Bessmer--a woman whose escape from five months of hell at the hands of her outlaw captors has fueled the same desire now simmering throughout the rest of the Texas Panhandle: a call for bloody vengeance of biblical proportions.
With teeth gritted and pistols hot, Marshal Thompson and Blackburn blur the line of justice while riding full into the face of a bloodbath from which neither man may come out the same--if they both can even come out alive at all.
Narrated in the authentically seasoned dialect of a southwestern storyteller, the Marshal Thompson series pays tribute to the thrilling and heartbreaking hardships of our nation's western history. Accurately reconstructing the sweeping landscapes of the old west, these novels document the times and historical locations largely ignored by writers who have not been there. Paul L Thompson actually has been there, and you will feel like you were there, too.
