Customer Reviews

The Vengeance Riders (Dales Western)

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Ex-Texas Ranger Jackson Hawke rode to Bedlam, New Mexico Territory to investigate the disappearance of his father who had stopped there on a cattle buying trip. He eventually comes across lawless officials, a disenchanted woman and a gang that robbed gold shipments.
Early on, especially, this lacked a strong narrative flow; several passages, for instance, had six or seven consecutive sentences beginning `He ...' that were sometimes an unnecessary step-by-step list of Hawke's movements. The detail oddly missing was a description of Bedlam; we were told the history of its name but not the layout, number and type of buildings, or their interiors. None of the businesses were named: they were simply called `the saloon', `the hotel', `the store', `the livery stable'. It's very unlikely that a town would only have one saloon and one store even if it only had one hotel.
Although much of the story occurred in and around Bedlam we were given no sense that a community existed there; only of about five or six inhabitants who played a part in what unfolded.
Not bad but not particularly memorable either.