“The Man is comin’, Sheriff…bringin’ the hounds of Hell with him…”
On a hot morning In 1830s Texas, a cattle rancher limps into the tiny, isolated town of High Water. He’s battered, bloody, and near death but insists on speaking to the sheriff. “The Man is coming,” he warns, “and he’s taking over this town.” The townspeople fearfully brace for the newcomer’s arrival.
The Man arrives with his gang of Hell Hounds in tow, brutally kills the sheriff, and declares the town his. Thus begins the reign of terror by the sinister band who, as the people soon discover, are more than meets the eye. The residents of High Water are terrorized, threatened, and forced to pay tribute to their cruel oppressors with violent repercussions for any who dare to resist.
But there is hope.
A story begins to circulate, in hushed whispers, behind closed doors. The legend of a renowned gunslinger and monster hunter who walks the earth, his sole purpose to seek and destroy the minions of hell. The people are held in the grip of terror, fearful of the consequences should they take a stand. But one young man will risk everything to escape The Man’s clutches, to locate the Legend and bring him back to banish the evil from High Water.
Is the legend real? Does the gunslinger still live? Can one man defeat the overwhelming odds and destroy the great evil that grips High Water?
NB Author Joe Powers will keep you looking over your shoulder if you read this story during the nighttime. Set in the "old west",evil people (beings) take over the town. While not the usual genre I choose to read, I enjoyed this novel. Well done Mr. Powers.
Good old fashioned horror novel set in Texas in the 1800s. Enjoyable reading, low Fbomb count, no sex. Just violent ways of dying. Think of Jason Momoa meets Clint Eastwood.
OK, let’s take a good old fashioned western story complete with a frontier town at the edge of nowhere and tip its reality bit-by-bit until it crashes into the universe of demons and hellfire. Toss in a broken demon fighter who’s not happy that he has to clean up a mess that he left undone on another continent years earlier and you have a formula for a whole new concept of a high noon showdown.
Terror in High Water is the debut novel of Joe Powers…and what a novel. The writing is crisp and evocative enough to overcome the age-old “town in trouble, need savior” storyline with an extremely Goth approach to a western. One man talks with an Irish accent, but everybody else sounds like they just stepped out of the head shop down the street and, honestly, I hate reading period pieces thick with words that make me stumble over meanings while I’m trying to read the story. Thank you, Mr. Powers, for not putting us through that.
This is a well-told story by a promising writer. Looking forward to more.