Heller in the Rockies

by Ben Bridges

Luke Heller was looking forward to spending some time with his beautiful Oriental partner high in the Colorado Rockies. His job — to handle security at a luxury mountain hotel — should have been a nice, peaceful little assignment. After all, what could possibly happen in a resort full of wealthy Easterners? But Luke didn’t know the half of it. Death was stalking the timbered slopes, and it came first in the shape of a grisly murder, then as a violent robbery. Almost before he knew it, the man from Tombstone was on the trail again, and calling upon all his experience as a one-time Pinkerton detective and Confederate sharpshooter in order to catch the killers in a brutal, explosive finale.

135 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 3, 2011

About the author

For as long as I can remember, I always wanted to be a writer, but it was my Dad, Henry Whitehead, who really fostered my interest in the west. As a security man employed by a large chemical company, he often found himself working the nightshift by himself, and to pass the long, lonely hours he would hand-copy pictures from old Buffalo Bill Annuals and then fetch them home for me to colour in.

During the day, Dad also made up western stories and dictated them into our old reel-to-reel tape recorder, so that I could listen to them when I got home from school. He even added sound effects as he went along, wiggling his fingers in a bowl of water to give the impression of outlaws fording a shallow stream, or bursting balloons to simulate gunfire. So it's really no wonder that I eventually developed such an interest in the west.

As I grew older, I started reading just about every western I could lay my hands on. I began with J T Edson's Floating Outfit novels and eventually moved on to the Larry and Stretch westerns of Marshall Grover (a.k.a. Leonard F Meares). Along the way, I also started writing westerns of my own, the adventures of Clint Jones, Railroad Detective, being among the earliest.

Reviews

[Barbara Lee Wood · Rating 5 out of 5]

DON'T MESS WITH LUKE KELLER

This is good old fashioned who done it, fast reading. Not to wordy and the plot at first goes a little astray, but as you read you still can't figure who and what are the real bad boys.
Luke Heller has really found his calling as a private detective and his partner/secretary Mai
Lion are on there way to a fancy resort in the
Colorado mountains.
Reads like a Charlie Chan movie, Sam Spade and
Have Gun Will Travel...mysteries that had you thinking and solving the robberies and the murder. Then as you read on your lost..great reading and it's a.....GOTCHA.

[Barry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really good Western Detective Story as Like and Mai take a temporary job in the Rockies and all hell breaks loose

[Linden Price · Rating 5 out of 5]

One fine book.

A must read. I now have a new author to read as I enjoyed this one thoroughly. Going to look for another one to read.