Shootout at Picture Rock

by Joseph A. West

U.S. Marshal John Kilcoyn and his friend, county sheriff Bat Materson, battle against renegade Indians, relentless bushwackers, and a former frontier lawman bent on revenge to rescue a local doctor and his daughter. Original.

Genres: Westerns

288 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Joe West was born and raised in the seaside town of Saltcoats in Scotland. At 19 he became a police officer, but soon turned his love of writing into a career as a journalist, working for the Daily Mirror in London among others. In 1972 West was recruited as a reporter for the National Enquirer, and began working in the United States. Traveling the world in search of stories, West almost froze to death on an Alaska mountain, and a spider bite nearly killed him in the Amazon rainforest. 'I swelled up like a balloon and turned a real pretty violet color,' he recalls.

Now a full-time novelist, West and his wife Emily reside in sunny Lake Worth, Florida, where he enjoys tamer pursuits like canoeing the alligator-infested swamps of the Everglades. His daughter Alexandria attends a local college where she studies forensic technology. She will have absolutely nothing to do with canoes and alligators.

West researches the settings of his novels by exploring the terrain in person, usually with little more than a sleeping bag and a can of coffee.

Recently he and Emily celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary at the Lodge in Cloudcroft, New Mexico, a gift from the students at Rio Rancho High School who use West's first novel as a textbook. They then spent a month in the mountains and deserts of New Mexico, often pitching their tent where the air is thin at 9,000 feet above the flat.

Reviews

[Randy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Marshall John Kilcoyn of Dodge City has a hell of a lot of trouble dogging him. Just back from chasing down a group of Cheyenne that had slaughtered a darm family, he learns the town Doctor and his daughter, Angela, had been kidnapped by Jake Pride, a former lawman turned bad who'd robbed a bank, only to have Kilcoyn chase him down and arrest him. He'd just gotten out of prison after five years.

He was demanding ransom, but the Marshall knows it's him Pride wants and Angela Wilson will bring him after the outlaw and his gang.

To help deliver the ransom, Kilcoyn gets help from Sheriff of Ford County, Bat Masterson, and the Mayor's nephew.

It's a long mission, with Star Blanket, the father of one of the Cheyenne he'd killed earlier, and his band after him, a band of Sioux looking to link up with the Cheyenne, a gunman trailing him because of the ransom money, and a family of Tennessee rednecks trying to kill the party.

In an interview with the author, I read that the manuscript started life as a Gunsmoke novel, but underwent extensive rewriting when that deal fell through.

[Waven · Rating 2 out of 5]

A fair read following an unpredictable week and a half in the life of Deputy United States Marshal John Kilcoyn. Having made powerful enemies, our protagonist joins forces with Sheriff Bat Masterson and Irish photographer Barry O'Neil to track down the men responsible for a kidnapping that hits far too close to home. The author uses some interesting language but too often got bogged down in cliches of the genre and a story that lacked depth. I was disappointed to see Bat Masterson (an actual historical figure) reduced to a second-rate sidekick and baffled by the discard of a leading character three-fourths of the way through the tale. Few twists in the storyline were surprising and much of the dialogue felt uncomfortably forced, but some of the characters were quite likable and the ending was satisfactory.