Single Action

by Nelson C. Nye

Pearly Adams was a cocky eighteen-year-old hell-raiser, and when he was assigned his first job as one of Cap Mossman's Arizona Rangers, he swore he'd prove his worth inside of twenty-four hours. But Pearly didn't know that there's more to being a lawman than just pinning on a badge—he'd have to back it up with a level head and a ready, fast gun. He learned his lesson the hard way when he found himself stranded in hell's half-acre, smack in the middle of a hot-lead range war!

159 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 1984

About the author

Nelson Coral Nye was an American author, wrote westerns and non-fiction books on quarter horses. Besides Nelson C. Nye he also wrote fiction using the pseudonyms Clem Colt and Drake C. Denver.
1959 Spur Award winning author for 'Long Run'.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_... and https://absolutewestern.fandom.com/wi...

Reviews

[Justin Briggs · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5/5. Wasn't a horrible book, but not the greatest either. I think the book had a great concept, a young arizona ranger sent to a town to try to solve problems he didn't know. It just seemed slow paced or boring at times. I still liked the book but at times I felt like the story wasn't progressing or he was once again talking about something again and again. I liked the last third of the book best, although it still didn't make up for some of the books undercomings completely. I will compliment the books use of words longer than cowboy, something uncommon in a lot of westerns, even with educated folks as the main characters, they often lack vocabulary. Well, I certainly wouldn't recommend it to anyone but if someone's looking for a quick read or a book with a little bit of action, this could be the one for you.

[John Peel · Rating 3 out of 5]

18 year old Pearly Adams is one of Mossman's Rangers, and he's just been given his first job - to look into a potentially troubling situation in a small Arizona town. The problem is that there are too many suspects and too few clues. And too many distracting pretty faces... It's a fun story with appealing characters, and I'd have given it another star, except the ending is incredibly rushed. It reads like he just realized he was three pages from the end of the novel and he had to tie the plot up NOW.