Customer Reviews

Staghorn (Gunsmoke Westerns)

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Staghorn is one of a six book series Champlin wrote about former Chicago journalist Matt Tierney ,who having gotten his big break on assignment to Gemeral Custer waas forced by circumstance into a life outside the margins of society .The books are best read sequentially but this is not absilutely essential.

Staghorn opens as Tierney and his friend Wiley Jenkins set out on a steamboat trip from New Orleans to the Dakota Territory.It is by no means a routine trip .For one thing there is an outbreak of cholera on board ,resulting in and the vessel being quarantined and for another there is an eminent personage among their fellow passengers -Crown Prince Zarahoff.On the first night out there is an altercation between the Prince and a nototious professional gambler ,Devore .The Prince is saved from a beating by the intervention of Staghorn ,a deepwater sailor looking to return home .From then on ,he and ,Tierney and Jenkins form an alliance which revolves around the Prince who is the victim of several assassination attempts .The main suspects are Devore and his associates,and the Prince's own bodyguards whose loyalty is suspect .Attempted drownings and ambushes follow before a climax which involves an unlikely saviour from the natural world .

The book is briskly paced ,incident full and will give genre lovers a pleasant few hours of enjoyment .but non genre lovers are unlikely to be converted .Enjoyable but not top drawer