Letter of the Law by C.K. Crigger

TITLE: Letter of the Law
AUTHOR: C.K. Crigger
PUBLISHER: Amber Quill Press
LENGTH: Novel (roughly 71k)
GENRE: Western
COST: $7.00

When gunslingers decide they want to take over Endurance, only one man seems to be standing in their way. They do their best to take down Sheriff Pelham Birdsall, but through the sheer tenacity of his wife Delight, he survives the attack. It lays him up, however, leaving the town wide open. His deputy is lazy and a drunk, and the only man Delight seems to have any confidence in helping is the ex-gunslinger who’s currently housed in one of the jail cells. Tuck Moon doesn’t want to get involved, but Delight isn’t a woman who takes no for an answer, and together with a recovering Pel, the trio do everything in their power to take care of the gunslingers, once and for all…

It saddens me to think that westerns might be a dying genre. There’s something about the grittiness of the Old West and the kind of people it generates that fascinates me. So when I find one I really like, I want to shout it to the world.

This was one of those books. On the surface, it’s not really that original. The story is about the Birdsalls, Pelham (the Sheriff) and his wife Delight. A new gang has rolled into town, and while he’s out doing his duty, Pel gets shot in the chest. It’s touch and go there for a while, since the town doctor is a drunk, but Delight is determined not to let Pel die. She’s left somewhat watching over things, since Pel’s deputy is lazy and spends more of his time drunk as well. Currently housed in one of the cells is Tuck Moon, an ex-gunslinger who was arrested for drunk and disorderly conduct. He’s respectful and helpful to Delight, and she learns to trust him very early on. With her husband out of commission, it’s up to Delight to try and keep everyone believing that he’ll be back on the job as soon as possible to take care of the latest threat, knowing full well that he’s lucky just to be alive. Through a series of incidents, Tuck ends up becoming a deputy as soon as his sentence is up, and together the three of them do what they can to stop Endurance from becoming another ghost town.

What sets this story apart is the rich cast of characters. Each of the three primaries are strong yet flawed individuals. Pel has a sense of honor and code that goes all the way to his core, Delight was a sheriff’s daughter before getting married and finds newfound strength in the face of her husband’s adversity, and Tuck is a drifter who gets a new lease on life when someone completely unexpected trusts him. They make mistakes, but the best thing is, they learn from them and bounce back. Sometimes, they get knocked over again. They might even make the same mistake more than once. But their tenacity and force of character drives the story forward, making me care with everything I have that it all works out, even when it looks like there’s no way it possibly can. There are no cheats when it comes to the consequences of their actions. When Tuck takes a beating, it flattens him for real. He has to heal up. He doesn’t miraculously jump back to his feet to beat the bad guys down. And for all her determination to see things through, Delight doubts herself all the time. She questions her strength. She acts, oh my god, like a real person. What an absolute joy, especially since she’s not the only one.

The villains of the piece don’t have the same textures the protagonists do, but that’s a flaw of the genre in general. I also felt that some of the townspeople blended together a little too much, since so many of them weren’t willing to do anything to stand up against the bad guys (understandably so, but to the detriment of their uniqueness). Other weaknesses of the story are harder to pinpoint. For instance, I can’t tell if there’s actual headhopping going on, or if it’s just faulty formatting on the ebook side. Plus, some of the language used borders on trite and stereotypical. Considering how gritty and vivid the setting and primary characters were, that was disappointing.

Overall, though, this stands proudly with other excellent stories in its genre. With characters to care about and root for, plot twists that keep it racing forward to its conclusion, and a setting that makes the reader practically feel the dust beneath the sole of his shoe, this cements my opinion on this writer. This is the second of her westerns that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed. I’m confident it won’t be the last.

Readability	7/10 – It’s hard to tell if it’s headhopping or the formatting, and some of the stereotypical language grated after a while, but otherwise engrossing
Characterization	9/10 – Loved the main characters. Gritty and flawed and completely believable
Plot	8/10 – It’s not the most innovative of ideas, but the twists that came along to get where they were going made up for it
Entertainment value	8/10 – Thoroughly entertaining, with a memorable cast
World building	9/10 – Gritty and grimy without sacrificing the newness of being in the Old West
TOTAL:	41/50

Black Crossing by C.K. Crigger

TITLE: Black Crossing
AUTHOR: C.K. Crigger
PUBLISHER: Amber Quill
LENGTH: Novel (roughly 62k)
GENRE: Western
COST: $7.00

When Marshal TJ Osgood rides into Black Crossing for his first day on the job, he’s greeted by the swinging body of a seventeen-year-old boy arrested, tried, and sentenced just the day before. He’d been accused of timber jumping, but his friend – TJ’s new deputy – claims he was innocent. So does the dead boy’s mother, but the man they’re all pointing fingers at not only owns the town, but is the man who sought TJ out and gave him a job. Now, TJ needs to find out what really happened, and set the story straight…

Every time I read a western, I ask myself, “Why don’t I read more of these than I do?” And I don’t know the answer to that. Because I quite often walk away from a finished book in this genre with warm feelings and a smile on my face. This book was no different.

The plot itself is not anything wholly original. Osgood is the new marshal in a town controlled by someone corrupt, and ends up caught in the middle of freeing the town from his tyranny and the man with the power to destroy him. At forty, Osgood is almost past his prime as a lawman, and his body is rebelling. He was shot in the leg just prior to coming to Black Crossing, Idaho, and that hobbling in many ways acts as a metaphor for what holds him back throughout the story. He’s made mistakes, and is unwilling to make those kind of mistakes again, a trait that’s hugely admirable and makes it very easy to empathize with him. It also places him in the underdog position, so even though he’s the one with the badge, he’s the one the reader holds his breath for throughout the story, time and time again.

His characterization isn’t the only well-rounded one. By far, the majority of the cast becomes a realistic individual almost from the moment they’re introduced. There’s Benny Tompko, his naïve but moral deputy. There’s Ione Gilpatrick, the mother of the dead boy, who has a fierce spirit and sense of honor that shine off the page. Even the minor character of Magda, Benny’s mother and a feminine presence to counter so many of the men, is warm and inviting. If I have any complaints about the characters, it would only be that the evil guys lack the same sort of depths the good guys do. However, I fully recognize this is a western trope, and so I was far more forgiving of this during the course of my reading.

The prose itself has a quiet intensity that keeps the action focused and the forward momentum strong and even. I didn’t care for the author’s propensity to turn “whoa” into a verb, as in “He whoaed his horse…” but aside from that niggle, I breezed through this. There is rarely a lag in the pacing, and while there are some romantic elements introduced to the story, they are very minor. They add just enough interest for those readers who might want that kind of emotional depth, without becoming the focus for any one of the characters to distract the readers who might prefer this based on its genre. I wouldn’t mind revisiting the town of Black Crossing again, if the author ever chose to pick it up again. Some of its residents almost felt like family when I turned the last page.

Readability	9/10 – A quiet intensity to its pacing keeps this going along
Characterization	8/10 – Some of the secondary characters aren’t quite as rich as the leads, but there’s a rustic realism to almost everyone that adds to the charm.
Plot	7/10 – While not wholly original, there’s enough action and likable characters to keep the forward momentum strong.
Entertainment value	8/10 – I cared enough about everyone to want to see this through to the end.
World building	9/10 – There’s grit in every scene.
TOTAL:	41/50