Shoot First/Ed Gorman

Nobody else writes Westerns quite like Ed Gorman. First of all, he's the true heir to H.A. DeRosso, crafting bleak, noirish stories that are heavily tinged with tragedy. Also, there's very little of the mythological about Gorman's Westerns. They're so realistic you feel like they actually could have happened. And his characters are some of the best in the business, developed so fully and expertly that the reader can almost feel some sympathy for even the most unsympathetic of them.

SHOOT FIRST, Ed's latest Western, is a fine example of his work in that genre. It's the story of four wealthy, powerful men in Butte City, Colorado, who share a dark secret; the man who knows that secret and seeks to exploit it; and the sheriff who has to cope with the inevitable violent repercussions once that secret begins to come out. Things aren't quite what they seem, though, or what the reader expects, because Ed springs some nice plot twists along the way and creates a lot of genuine suspense. This is a fine book, and I highly recommend it.