Killing Season

by Frederic Bean

As Clay Younger and his band of desperadoes ride for the border with their booty of gold from a train robbery, Texas Ranger Will Dobbs takes off after them, determined to bring them to justice

Mass Market Paperback

First published July 20, 1992

Reviews

[iasa · Rating 2 out of 5]

More of a 2.5. There was lots of action but the dialogue was a bit repetitive .

[Robert Jr. · Rating 1 out of 5]

I took a chance on this one when I picked it up from the shelves in a local thrift store. The elements I look for in a Western story are not present here and if they are, they’re as cliché as hell. This novel also has more in common with Men’s Adventure junk like Edge by George Gilman than it has with any vintage or classic Westerns. The landscape which figures heavily into my favorite stories is mostly absent until the last third of the book where it only serves as a barrier for the defeated train robbers. There is plenty of gunplay and lots of blood. The only fisticuffs come at the very end, it’s all about shooting and killing. A love interest is tacked on at the most inopportune time and suddenly evaporates at the end anyway, so it was jammed into three chapters stopping the story dead for no real reason at all. The plot is very thin, a gang of train robbers rob a train of gold, and a group of Texas rangers with a thirst for blood chase them down before they flee to Mexico with the gold. The only real character work other than repeating how thirsty for blood a character is, concerns the main character, Captain Will Dobbs. He often thinks about how much the job has changed him for the negative and how he needs to retire before he becomes too bloodthirsty like his men. Then nothing comes of that he just repeats it every now and again, and then the love interest comes in and that comes to nothing. That’s it, that’s all the character work in this novel. This is barely a Western, it’s much more an action novel with a Western backdrop. I cannot recommend this one at all, if you’re looking for a Western to read, this ain’t it.