Comanche Vengeance

by Richard Jessup

Sarah Phelps rides to reek vengeance on Comanche chief,One Nest, who brutally murdered her family. Gibson Duke accompanies her on the trail, at first to keep her from getting hurt. But he soon realizes she is a crack shot and can help protect him also.

Genres: Westerns

Mass Market Paperback

Published January 1, 1980

About the author

Also wrote under the name Richard Telfair

Richard Jessup was a prolific American author and screenwriter.

Reviews

[Steven · Rating 5 out of 5]

Starts off brutal when Sarah Phelps finds her two small children raped and murdered by Comanches. She buries them and then burns down her house and barn and rides off searching for her husband's body. After she buries him she rides after the Comanches seeking vengeance. Sarah Phelps is a dynamite character. She's tough, driven, whip-smart, and a crack-shot. Grudgingly she accepts help from Gibson Duke and the two of them track the Comanches and every chapter brings at least one new test on her quest for vengeance. They battle outlaws and Comanches multiple times. Get captured and escape. There's buffalo hunts and blizzards. She goes to hell and back to get her scalp, and to also discover love again. Awesome western, one of the best that I can ever remember reading.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

The main plot for Comanche Vengeance is the stubborn and relentless pursuit of a Comanche chief by a grieving woman. Though the plot shares a basic premise with a famous John Wayne film, it lacks the depth and characterization of the famous film.

The novel offers some cleverly paced action and something of a telescopic view into the old west. Though I enjoyed parts of it, the flaws kept creeping up into my mind. They weren't minor flaw, but major flaws.

First, the woman wants vengeance for the murder of her family. She focuses her anger on a Comanche War Chief. While he may bear some responsibility for the murders, there is never any evidence he was even involved. She never once expresses the desire to find the individual warrior who scalped her son and raped her daughter. Instead, she chooses to focus her hatred on the chief. That becomes a fairly good sized flaw.

The Second flaw is Gibson Duke following her on this trail of vengeance. The author never endows him with any real motivation for joining up with this complete stranger for her ride to vengeance. She does everything she can to dissuade him and yet he continues to follow her for no real reason. He doesn't hate the Comanche as she does. He has no financial motivation, no personal act of vengeance burning in his heart, and not even romantic inclinations towards the woman. He has no reason to follow her around and act as her knight in Shining Armor.

Despite the flaws, Jessup creates a vengeance trail that is both credible and populated by western life as it really was. The flaws keep it from being a great western, but it still is an adequate read.

[Aravind Jayan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Loved it