Gazpacho is a dish best served cold. That is mostly what
this book is about. Cold dish stuff. Like revenge. And vengeance. And avenging
someone. Any and all venge related
words happen here, and the Sheriff is trying to play detective to prevent the vengeant
from avenging, revenging, and vengancing the vengee. The characters are pretty
good in this story. The main character is a bit down, feeling sorry for
himself, and lives in a self-loathed squalor. But he truly is a great sheriff,
very representative of small town law enforcement. Even drinks on his way home
in his cruiser.
After his wife died, he did not necessarily go into a deep
dark depression, but instead just melted into a sloppy, unmotivated,
unambitious version of himself. Then the murder happens. Talk about a hell of a
shot, ballistics and detective work eventually find out the round was from a
Sharps .45-70. One of the best rifles ever made. Not so much a rifle, really,
but a shoulder cannon. Or better yet, an explosion that just hurls a baseball
weight of lead at its target hard enough to put a bison down at 300 yards.
Hence the name, Buffalo Rifle. It is also capable of taking down a person at a
better range, though that takes a great shot and even a bit of luck, as the
bullets do not fly very true beyond 500 yards, which tends to be its practical
range for shooting targets in the field.
In any event, the author knows much about this gun and other
guns in general, and as the sheriff learns about them, everyone gets walked
through the history and the mechanics of these
breech loading canons. Truly awesome weapons, but very difficult to
shoot. Pretty funny, also, that there are so many in such a small town. Irony
that is not lost upon the sheriff, which I appreciate. Kind of like a moment
when the character in the story says “this story is sort of weird, but okay.” I
think this happened on multiple occasions, but my memory is a bit foggy on the
other instance. It was something to the effect of him answering another member
of the community with “I’m not sure it’s a murder mystery yet, but if it is,
there aren’t many butlers in these parts.” Not sure the details of the joke,
but I make butler jokes all the time in murder stories so I thought it was
great.
Again, the characters were all great, Henry Standing Bear
probably the best of them all. Omar in perhaps a close second, but virtually
all characters, very minor or major, had their own identity, contributed
something to the storyline, and created that bit of small-town community whilst
still being true to the small-town drama queens that I am more than just a
little familiar with.
The pace was great, the mystery was pretty good, and the
ending was getting to be a bit frustrating but ended up being okay. Violent,
and violent to the point of the author taking the approach “we don’t need to
talk about how gross that is, but trust me, it is devastatingly disgusting.” A
.45-70 is capable of incredible damage, and I felt the damage it did to the
murder victims wasn’t sensationalized or over-exaggerated. But in the end? Best
we all don’t know how that one ended up looking.
This was enough to throw the sheriff into a strange
depression. It lasts for several weeks, and by the time the book is over we
don’t know if it will last longer, be something he carries with him forever or
just gets over and gets back to being the sheriff. Guess we’ll have to read the
next one to find out.
The combination of old school style, vaguely sexist and only
slightly above the law, makes me think of the noir mystery novels I really
like. But set in a contemporary western environment I can relate to much more.
Pretty good combination, though I still will deny it being a great book, I will say it is a good one.
Maybe because a mystery series just isn’t really my thing.
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