High Plains Justice

Review of High Plains Justice by Maryk Lewis

Overview from www.barnesandnoble.com:

Hot lead flew, and blood flowed freely in 1859. The Cheyenne were raiding. When outlaws gunned down two sleepy cowpokes, and rode off with a thousand Texas longhorns, their main problem was what to do with the slow-moving cattle. Johnnie Bell’s problem lay in getting them back. The army couldn’t help — they had the marauding Indians to deal with. Texas Rangers had no jurisdiction once the cattle were over the border, and other settlers had their own homes and herds to guard. Luckily for Johnnie, he had two Comanche friends with points to prove, and along the way he met up with a feisty widow woman, who had lost both husband and herd to the self-same rustlers.

My Review:

Sorry again for the long absence but thankfully the book I pulled out of my Nook this week, or rather last week, to read, was rather short. Otherwise I might have taken twice as long to post this review since it would have taken me twice as long to read. The good news is that this new class I am taking at the university is teaching me new things so you should probably expect some changes in the future. For example, this week I have changed the font. Not earth shattering, I know, but hey, it’s something.

Anyway, back to the review. Our story this week seemed at first to be your run of the mill Western which takes place in Texas. We have Johnnie Bell, our main character, out one day minding his own business herding cattle when he encounters a problem. Some men come from out of nowhere and steal their cattle. Like I said a run of the mill Western.

The fun comes when he and his coworkers decide to go after them. Law enforcement officials are busy, very busy with “trouble at the border.” Then they discover that there are others in the area that have also had cattle stolen. One of them lost his life and left behind a wife. Enter Mary-Lou. She has a reputation of someone who has lived a sheltered life on southern plantation with no head for herding cattle but she’s about to prove them all wrong.

With the army and other law enforcement busy with the border, the men and one woman must take it upon themselves to discover who took their cattle, track them down, and get their cattle back. And they all have a lot invested in the outcome of this sad business.

The story overall was a good one. There were some typos that I noticed but they didn’t detract from the story too much. Also interesting was the use of British spellings which tells me one of two things:

• The writer is British or from a country that uses British spellings (that is not the USA)
• The book was published in England or a country which uses British spellings.

Keeping those two possibilities in mind, it is interesting to think that this story might have been written by someone who is not American. That seems unusual to me so I found it interesting.

The story was interesting and not too drawn out. Overall, I found it to be interesting. It was a good, clean story even if it wasn’t great. Worth a read since it’s free.