The Badge And Harry Cole

by Clifton Adams

As a deputy marshal in lawless Western Arkansas, Harry Cole was well qualified for the job. He took a passionate pride in the knowledge that he was better at it than almost anybody else.
Cole let nothing interfere with his work: not friendship or personal loyalties—nor even the love of his beautiful wife, Cordelia.
As a grand climax to his bloody career as lawman, he took on the infamous Sutter gang. Along the way he left a trail of dead men and broken lives. Finally, having lost everything but his badge, he had to make the most bitter choice of his life...

191 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1971

Reviews

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a tight fast novel and a great character study

[Jay Wright · Rating 4 out of 5]

Surprisingly good! This is a little like True Grit. Harry Cole is a Federal Marshall working for Judge Parker in the Indian territories. His wife has turned on him, but the one thing he is good at is being a lawman. So while he is rounding up persons selling whiskey to the Indians, he runs across a gang that robbed a train in Missouri. The character is well developed and it has a good gritty story.

[Thomas Burchfield · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty good noirish western from a Spur-Award winning author. Harry Cole is a deputy marshal for the (in)famous Judge Parker and obsessed with his job above all else. When Judge Parker sends Cole in pursuit of the Sutter gang in the hills of Oklahoma Territory, Cole becomes a man as dangerous and cruel as his prey. It's no TRUE GRIT, but Adams tells an exciting yarn colored with bleak but exacting detail, capturing the harshness of life at that time and place.

[Teresa Creek · Rating 4 out of 5]

Marshall Harry Cole is very good at being a lawman in the wild and wooley west. He always goes for the worst of the worse and brings them back even if it means going against Judge Parker's orders. As he pursues the Sutter gang he leaves a trail of blood, death and carnage behind him including his own marriage to the lovely Cordelia. I enjoyed this book because I'm a silly romantic that likes blood and guts.