The Ballad of Bryan Drayne

by Frank Roderus

Roderus paints an exciting picture of a lawless time in Montana/Idaho territory, where a guy’s life could be in danger over as little as a piece of lukewarm apple pie. This story is full of both laugh out loud funny and harrowing moments, as Bryan Drayne, a businessman adrift in this wild time, must play a cat-and-mouse game with a band of drunken vigilantes. Roderus spins his yarn with equal parts irony and quick-draw wit, and had me rooting for his unlikely hero.

173 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1987

About the author

Frank Roderus wrote his first story—it was a western—when he was five. It was really awful, as might be expected, but his mother kept that typed and spell-checked short story tucked away until the day she died.
Later, Frank became a newspaper reporter, thinking that books are written by authors which he most assuredly was not. He kept trying to write though, and eventually did it wrong enough to learn how to get it right. That first sale, a young adult novel published by Independence Press, was more than thirty years and a good many books ago.
As a journalist, the Colorado Press Association awarded Frank Roderus their highest award, the Sweepstakes Award, for the best news story of 1980, and the Western Writers of America has twice named Frank recipient of their prestigious Spur Award. Frank passed away at age 73 in December 2015.

Reviews

[D. E. · Rating 5 out of 5]

An FR Western About A Man Who Is Accused of Killing Anpther

FR had penned a western novel about a New York businessman traveling to Seattle who has an altercation and a man is killed accidentally. He escaped into the wild away from a vigilante group. Two men who n he group fall, one to his death and the other to a broken lrg. The chase continue until the man reached safety. This is an excellent read for the genre.....DEHS