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Gunfighter's Reputation #7
Gunmen of the Desert Sands
Fast Larry Shaw is the fastest gunhand there is. But when he’s caught in a town of fear terrorized by both federales and banditos, Shaw’s going to have to be more than fast. He’ll have to be deadly...
- GenresWesterns
304 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 2008
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May 8, 2018
Gunmen of the Desert Sands is the seventh installment in the saga with Fast Larry Shaw and Clayton Dawson, two friends who have had quite the interesting life both together and apart, but who always seem to find each other at just the right moment to help the other out.
I read this in about 14 hours a couple of days ago. I am almost done with the worst semester of my teaching career, and just wanted something to escape with, and returning to my two favorite cowboys was just the escape I needed. I have said this before in my reviews of the previous six books—I genuinely just admire and respect these two men. In seven books I feel I have gotten to know them like friends, though they are two men I definitely would want to have on my side when the guns start going off, that’s for sure.
In this adventure, after the events at Hell’s Gate, Clayton Dawson has been commissioned by the government to hunt down and eliminate the border raiders between Mexico and the US. These “raiders” have been destroying towns and people, and otherwise wreaking havoc all across the southern border, and nobody has been able to stop them...nobody, of course, except for, you guessed it, Fast Larry and Dawson. Fast Larry, like usual, is just drifting from one place to the next, and finds himself in Zarco, a small town overrun by these raiders who have intimidated the locals and are molesting the good people of the town. This story has two “bad guys”—Madsen, a regular bastard of a man who sends a woman’s husband to the mines as a prisoner just so he can sleep with his wife, and Leeman, who takes over the Raiders when Madsen meets with an ignominious (and absolutely deliciously) painful death. Leeman is desperate to hire Shaw as his personal bodyguard, so throughout the novel, Shaw does a fairly effective job of playing both sides while he figures out how to save a woman and her daughter who are held captive as sex slaves, and end the lives of the villainous border raiders.
Like the previous novels in this series, Shaw gets himself into a bit of trouble, but nothing too serious, and that’s another reason I truly enjoy these novels. Some authors feel they have to have their heroes tortured, and their families kidnapped and murdered, just to create drama and tension. Cotton never does this. No, not everything goes smoothly, but I read these novels BECAUSE I want good to prevail and the wicked to suffer, BECAUSE in the real world, the wicked prosper while the righteous suffer, which is the reality I detest most about this miserable mortal existence. At least in westerns, justice prevails, and nobody does a better job of delivering that justice than Ralph Cotton. While I love a good Louis L’Amour novel, I will still read Cotton above all of them.
In any event, everything comes to a head as Dawson and Caldwell (a former undertaker-turned-lawman) and Shaw converge on Zarco, together with a regiment of the Mexican military, and blow the town to smithereens, as they say. Of course, Leeman and his band of devils escapes, but not for long as Dawson and Shaw are hot on their trail. They meet for a final showdown in a nearby town, and the conclusion is as satisfying as any of the previous novels in this series.
Though the storylines may seem repetitive, they really aren’t. Each book has told a unique story with unique characters unlike others I’ve encountered. The result may be predictable, but the journey isn’t, which makes me respect Ralph Cotton even more. I look forward to my next adventure with these two men who epitomize what goodness, fairness, manhood, and justice are all about. If only those qualities still existed and were valued today.
I read this in about 14 hours a couple of days ago. I am almost done with the worst semester of my teaching career, and just wanted something to escape with, and returning to my two favorite cowboys was just the escape I needed. I have said this before in my reviews of the previous six books—I genuinely just admire and respect these two men. In seven books I feel I have gotten to know them like friends, though they are two men I definitely would want to have on my side when the guns start going off, that’s for sure.
In this adventure, after the events at Hell’s Gate, Clayton Dawson has been commissioned by the government to hunt down and eliminate the border raiders between Mexico and the US. These “raiders” have been destroying towns and people, and otherwise wreaking havoc all across the southern border, and nobody has been able to stop them...nobody, of course, except for, you guessed it, Fast Larry and Dawson. Fast Larry, like usual, is just drifting from one place to the next, and finds himself in Zarco, a small town overrun by these raiders who have intimidated the locals and are molesting the good people of the town. This story has two “bad guys”—Madsen, a regular bastard of a man who sends a woman’s husband to the mines as a prisoner just so he can sleep with his wife, and Leeman, who takes over the Raiders when Madsen meets with an ignominious (and absolutely deliciously) painful death. Leeman is desperate to hire Shaw as his personal bodyguard, so throughout the novel, Shaw does a fairly effective job of playing both sides while he figures out how to save a woman and her daughter who are held captive as sex slaves, and end the lives of the villainous border raiders.
Like the previous novels in this series, Shaw gets himself into a bit of trouble, but nothing too serious, and that’s another reason I truly enjoy these novels. Some authors feel they have to have their heroes tortured, and their families kidnapped and murdered, just to create drama and tension. Cotton never does this. No, not everything goes smoothly, but I read these novels BECAUSE I want good to prevail and the wicked to suffer, BECAUSE in the real world, the wicked prosper while the righteous suffer, which is the reality I detest most about this miserable mortal existence. At least in westerns, justice prevails, and nobody does a better job of delivering that justice than Ralph Cotton. While I love a good Louis L’Amour novel, I will still read Cotton above all of them.
In any event, everything comes to a head as Dawson and Caldwell (a former undertaker-turned-lawman) and Shaw converge on Zarco, together with a regiment of the Mexican military, and blow the town to smithereens, as they say. Of course, Leeman and his band of devils escapes, but not for long as Dawson and Shaw are hot on their trail. They meet for a final showdown in a nearby town, and the conclusion is as satisfying as any of the previous novels in this series.
Though the storylines may seem repetitive, they really aren’t. Each book has told a unique story with unique characters unlike others I’ve encountered. The result may be predictable, but the journey isn’t, which makes me respect Ralph Cotton even more. I look forward to my next adventure with these two men who epitomize what goodness, fairness, manhood, and justice are all about. If only those qualities still existed and were valued today.
Displaying 1 of 1 review