The Devil's Marshal goes to Large Print

I've received the welcome news that last October's novel The Devil's Marshal will be published as a large print paperback. It'll be my 23rd Linford Western and it should appear late on in 2015.

In a travesty of justice, bounty hunter Brodie Latimer's sister Lucinda is found guilty of murder. Thwarted, when a witness is killed, but convinced of her innocence, he vows to find the real killer and, as more of Hamilton's leading figures die in mysterious circumstances, the clues lead him to Derrick Shelby, a man known as the Devil's marshal. 

The only trouble is, Derrick died a year ago. How can Brodie clear his sister's name and bring the guilty to justice when the killer appears to be the spectre of a long dead lawman?

Yates's Dilemma now on Kindle

My latest Kindle title is now available. Yates’s Dilemma was my 6th Black Horse Western and it first appeared in 2004.

 

 

This was my third Cassidy Yates tale and the first without his sidekick Nathaniel McBain. The tale is a straightforward yarn centring around the mystery of whether Wendell Moon is a cold-blooded killer or just a cold-blooded businessman. With a heap of people wanting to kill Wendell, Cassidy has to keep the peace while struggling to work out whether he should arrest Wendell or protect him.

The original title for this story was Wendell Moon is Back, which the publisher rightly pointed out was an awful title even before considering that it didn’t even sound like a western. They asked for alternate titles and so I decided to provide five. I came up with four rip-snorting titles suggesting lots of gun-toting action quite easily, but I struggled on the fifth and eventually plumped for Yates’s Dilemma. They went with that one.

This change of title rather ruined my blurb where I’d made several references to Wendell Moon’s decision to come back ending with the ominous warning that Wendell Moon is back. That no longer worked and so the blurb got jigged around and a new closing line was added with the even more ominous line that: Real trouble lies ahead! At the time I was amused by that sentence as it felt like the lamest ever line to sell a book, but ten years on it no longer feels so odd.

The other main thing about this book is that I was lucky enough to get my first really classic cover. I still rank it as one of my favourites with both gunfighters being nicely rendered and the setting even being appropriate for one scene.

Anyhow, the book is now available from all good Amazon stores

When Wendell Moon hightailed it out of Monotony, he left in his wake a murdered lawman and a mob braying for his blood. Fifteen years later the word is out – Wendell Moon is back! But, for Sheriff Cassidy Yates, Wendell’s unwelcome return rekindles old vendettas and ignites three days of raging gun battles.

Now the sheriff has the impossible duty of keeping the peace, but as if that isn’t enough Wendell also claims he never killed the lawman!

If Cassidy doesn’t unearth the truth quickly, Wendell’s trigger-happy enemies will deliver their own form of gun-toting justice. Real trouble lies ahead!