Speaking of western horror stories, there aren't enough of them and this one about bounty hunter, Tyler Cabe, shines like a gold nugget freshly picked in 1851.

In Utah, that's when the story unfolds. Cabe is hunting a serial killer named The Sin City Strangler and winds up in a town with a sheriff he met on the opposite side of the civil war. The tension is palatable between these two and add in some other colorful characters including a hilarious "giant" who comes into town to avenge his slain brother and an antagonist who starts the story dead and then becomes much worse. I loved how the author tells the present and then gives us an interesting and worthwhile flashback to explain the history of the villain in the story. There is also a clever nod to a real world figure in that time.

Fans of western horror tales. Heck, most any horror fan should enjoy this excellent story.

Curran did his research on this one and it shows in both language, detail and substance. This is Tim Curran's storytelling at his best that I've seen, right up close to his novel, DEAD SEA.

My tiny complaint with the story, and it's very small, is that I found the wife of the sheriff a bit cheap and undesirable to my liking. I found it difficult to warm up to her, which dampened some of my excitement as the story progressed (but not enough to ruin my overall enjoyment). The fact that a character sparks strong emotion is generally a great thing (unless every character invokes negative emotions -- I have to have someone or something to root for).

Read another western horror story!

I'm not taking away any partial stars because I want the author to write a sequel to this story and feel this is one of those rare gems among horror novels. It's a slight notch behind DEAD SEA as my favorite Curran novel (I have a couple more to read, thankfully) and came highly recommended among my horror loving reader friends. I've seen the author hint that a sequel might be a possibility. Man, I wish there were more western horror tales! I see where Curran left open a door for more tales, too.

This is some of Tim Curran's brightest characterization, BTW, not to mention his regularly scheduled awesome description and imagery skills. Bump this up your TBR ASAP. 5 stars. Highly recommended.

5,843 Kindle locations. Approximately 276 pages.

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Created Sep 08, 2013 at 4:20pm • Submit your own review...