The Buff Runners

Gunn #14

by Jory Sherman

Sherman, J.

256 pages, Paperback

First published December 9, 2014

About the author

Jory Sherman was born in Minnesota and grew up in West Texas, Louisiana, and Colorado. He was a magazine editor for a time and had some of his work published, including some poetry, short stories and articles. Sherman had a friend who owned a publishing company and asked him to write a novel for the company. From that offer came five more novels, all written in one year. He wrote the supernatural mystery series, "Chill," which was somewhat revolutionary for the times, but which earned him an eight book contract. He then came up with the idea for "Rivers West," a series which had each book written by a different western author. Then came the "Baron Saga," the first of which was "Grass Kingdom" which earned Sherman a nomination for the Pulitzer Prize in Letters. Sherman has also won the Spur Award for his contribution to Western Literature.

Reviews

[Edwin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Gunn, the protagonist of this series, and his pal Jed Randall ride into San Antonio and sign up to crew for a buffalo hunt with John Masters, a long-time hunter who happens to have a beautiful wife and a couple of hot and horny daughters. A rival crew that is consumed by hated towards Masters intends to use any means necessary to sabotage the hunt in their favor. They are also infuriated by Gunn and vow vengeance. The author Jory Sherman writes wonderful prose and the first half of the book is terrific, however it meanders into a lengthy exposition of the buffalo hunt with a few sex scenes and a couple of sniper attacks tossed in that don’t add much value effectively turning the second half into a real slog. The brutal buffalo killing is described in great detail with excessive gore that I found especially distasteful. An exciting climax pulls it out of the mire, but unfortunately too late for redemption.