Publisher's Weekly
This hayburner of a western mystery is short on whodunit and long on six-gun body count. Young Clint Durby is a wise-cracking, carefree cowboy who rides for the rich and powerful Sawtooth Syndicate cattle ranch in frontier Montana. His younger brother, Lee, is a serious college student-righteous, ambitious and nosy-visiting from Chicago. Soon arrayed against the pair are the three syndicate owners. These typical hard cases-a brutal railroad baron, a cruelly arrogant English duke and a murderous U.S. senator-are plotting an illegal land grab on a huge scale. Lee smells a polecat and navely uncovers the conspiracy, causing the trio of owlhoots to pick up their guns to cover their tracks. After Lee is murdered, Clint and a couple of ''sporting girls'' team up to avenge the young man's death, discovering too late that the swamp of treachery and danger spreads far beyond ranch boundaries. Although beaten, tortured, shot and betrayed, Clint always has a snappy comeback, unloading his six-gun into any hapless thug who happens by. The action is fast and furious, but the plot is transparent and the characters shallow, adding up to a vehicle apparently designed to show off only as much gunplay and gore as possible.
Library Journal
Curtis (Pepper Tree Rider, Walker, 1994) offers a hair-raising tale of the Wild West. Clint Durby, a jokester and loud-mouthed ranch hand, seeks to avenge the brutal murder of Lee, his younger brother, who shortly before his death found evidence that the Sawtooth Cattle syndicate planned to steal reservation land in order to build a resort complex. The syndicate members-a violent banker, a vicious Englishman, and a venal U.S. Senator-have no mercy for those who interfere with their plans. Guns and fists figure prominently in Clint's vengeance, and he and two others are the only survivors of the carnage. The language is violent and vulgar, but Clint's message is clear: no more "one law for the rich, another for the poor." For large Western collections.-Sister Avila, formerly with Acad. of the Holy Angels, Minneapolis
BookList - Wes Lukowsky
The Duroys--Clint and Lee--are brothers but as different as night and day. Clint's a joker and a cowhand for life; Lee is a serious journalism student home for the summer to earn money for school. On a day when Clint's shenanigans land him in jail, Lee is killed in an accident. The body is buried up in the mountains, ostensibly because the cowboys were unable to get it down. Clint accepts the explanation but wonders what happened to Lee's omnipresent notebook. When Clint finds Lee's body, it becomes clear that the kid was murdered. Why? Was it something in the notebook? Eventually, Clint discovers the notebook and realizes that it implicates the powerful owners of the ranch in an illegal land deal. Clint wants justice, not revenge, but the dogged pursuit of the killers and the far-reaching influence of their money force him to violence. An exciting, character-driven western from an Emmy-nominated scriptwriter for the television series "Gunsmoke".
Genre: Western
This hayburner of a western mystery is short on whodunit and long on six-gun body count. Young Clint Durby is a wise-cracking, carefree cowboy who rides for the rich and powerful Sawtooth Syndicate cattle ranch in frontier Montana. His younger brother, Lee, is a serious college student-righteous, ambitious and nosy-visiting from Chicago. Soon arrayed against the pair are the three syndicate owners. These typical hard cases-a brutal railroad baron, a cruelly arrogant English duke and a murderous U.S. senator-are plotting an illegal land grab on a huge scale. Lee smells a polecat and navely uncovers the conspiracy, causing the trio of owlhoots to pick up their guns to cover their tracks. After Lee is murdered, Clint and a couple of ''sporting girls'' team up to avenge the young man's death, discovering too late that the swamp of treachery and danger spreads far beyond ranch boundaries. Although beaten, tortured, shot and betrayed, Clint always has a snappy comeback, unloading his six-gun into any hapless thug who happens by. The action is fast and furious, but the plot is transparent and the characters shallow, adding up to a vehicle apparently designed to show off only as much gunplay and gore as possible.
Library Journal
Curtis (Pepper Tree Rider, Walker, 1994) offers a hair-raising tale of the Wild West. Clint Durby, a jokester and loud-mouthed ranch hand, seeks to avenge the brutal murder of Lee, his younger brother, who shortly before his death found evidence that the Sawtooth Cattle syndicate planned to steal reservation land in order to build a resort complex. The syndicate members-a violent banker, a vicious Englishman, and a venal U.S. Senator-have no mercy for those who interfere with their plans. Guns and fists figure prominently in Clint's vengeance, and he and two others are the only survivors of the carnage. The language is violent and vulgar, but Clint's message is clear: no more "one law for the rich, another for the poor." For large Western collections.-Sister Avila, formerly with Acad. of the Holy Angels, Minneapolis
BookList - Wes Lukowsky
The Duroys--Clint and Lee--are brothers but as different as night and day. Clint's a joker and a cowhand for life; Lee is a serious journalism student home for the summer to earn money for school. On a day when Clint's shenanigans land him in jail, Lee is killed in an accident. The body is buried up in the mountains, ostensibly because the cowboys were unable to get it down. Clint accepts the explanation but wonders what happened to Lee's omnipresent notebook. When Clint finds Lee's body, it becomes clear that the kid was murdered. Why? Was it something in the notebook? Eventually, Clint discovers the notebook and realizes that it implicates the powerful owners of the ranch in an illegal land deal. Clint wants justice, not revenge, but the dogged pursuit of the killers and the far-reaching influence of their money force him to violence. An exciting, character-driven western from an Emmy-nominated scriptwriter for the television series "Gunsmoke".
Genre: Western
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