Armstrong Rides Again! (2)

Custer of the West #2

by H.W. Crocker III

“The best new novel I’ve read in years…. As rugged as Zane Grey, as funny as P. G. Wodehouse, as smart as Evelyn Waugh, and as sharp as Ambrose Bierce. You don’t want to miss it.” —Michael Warren Davis, The Common Man

In Armstrong , the first volume in the Custer of the West series, George Armstrong Custer survived the battle at the Little Big Horn, assumed a new identity (Marshal Armstrong Armstrong) and with the help of a multilingual Indian scout, cancan dancers, Chinese acrobats, a savage dog, and a Southern cardsharp, saved the town of Bloody Gulch, Montana, from the oppression of a corrupt Indian trader.

Now Armstrong is back, in Armstrong Rides Again! making common cause with the writer (and former Union officer) Ambrose Bierce, and serving as a soldier of fortune in the strife-torn Latin American island of Neustraguano, where romance, intrigue, a rumbling volcano, revolutionaries, smugglers, treasure, and a civil war all combine for a rip-roaring sequel.

Genres: Fiction

256 pages, Hardcover

Published June 1, 2021

About the author

H.W. Crocker III is the bestselling author of the prize-winning comic novel The Old Limey and several books of military history, including Triumph, Robert E. Lee on Leadership, The Politically Incorrect Guide® to the Civil War, The Politically Incorrect Guide® to the British Empire, Yanks, and Don’t Tread on Me.

His journalism has appeared in National Review, the American Spectator, the Washington Times, and many other outlets. Educated in England and California, Crocker lives on the site of a former Confederate encampment in Virginia.

Reviews

[Clay Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are laugh out loud moments in this book. The author writes very witty dialog. The humor borders the absurd and occasionally but does cross the line a few times.

[Curtis Edmonds · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the first Armstrong book much more than this one, which largely takes place on a fictional Hispanic version of Krakatoa, way, way far east of Java. It drags in useless characters from the first book for no good reason (although the ex-Confederate colonel who returns for no good reason gets quite the funniest line in the book). It has Custer chasing after a woman who he never even gets close to, or who he doesn't seem to even care about much. And Armstrong Rides Again keeps throwing in references to contemporary politics, which is cheating. Most of the jokes come from Custer willfully misunderstanding perfectly clear Spanish. All that works is the poke-in-the-eye political incorrectness, which is welcome but not exactly on point.

[Phillip Mclaughlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

a second just for fun read

Preposterous, humorous, ridiculous and thoroughly entertaining.
A great series with George Custer living incognito but doing the adventurous insane thing to tell a tale.
Recommend without reservation.