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Avenging Angels #7
Avenging Angels: The Wine of Violence
SADDLE UP FOR BOOK SEVEN OF THE HEART-POUNDING, BULLET-BURNING, BIBLE-THUMPING WESTERN SERIES!
The bounty hunting twins, Reno and Sara Bass, trail a savage killer into the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas and uncover a new criminal organization that threatens to spread throughout the south.
The leader of the gang may or may not be a charismatic preacher by the name of Eli Cable. Reno must go undercover in a town full of vicious outlaws to discover the truth—is Cable a man of God, or a killer for gold?
Guns will sing and sacrifices will bleed before the secrets of Eli Cable are brought to light. And what will be the cost for the Avenging Angels?
The bounty hunting twins, Reno and Sara Bass, trail a savage killer into the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas and uncover a new criminal organization that threatens to spread throughout the south.
The leader of the gang may or may not be a charismatic preacher by the name of Eli Cable. Reno must go undercover in a town full of vicious outlaws to discover the truth—is Cable a man of God, or a killer for gold?
Guns will sing and sacrifices will bleed before the secrets of Eli Cable are brought to light. And what will be the cost for the Avenging Angels?
- GenresWesterns
342 pages, Paperback
Published February 26, 2020
146 people are currently reading
6 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
March 14, 2022
Like "Franklin W. Dixon" and "Carolyn Keene," "A. W. Hart" is the house pen name assigned by the publisher to all the various authors of individual books in the series of which this novel is the seventh installment. In this case, though, A. W. is actually my Goodreads friend Charles Gramlich (that's no secret; he's credited in the "About the Author" note at the book's end). Although I'd read and liked a couple of his short e-stories previously, I'd never tried any of his long fiction. So, when I saw this novel mentioned in one of his blog posts last year, I was intrigued enough to buy a copy. (Barb and I read it together, since she's an avid Western fan, and I knew this would be right up her alley.)
In choosing to read this installment by itself, I guessed correctly that it can be treated as a standalone. The series premise is explained in passing near the beginning, without needing any burdensome long exposition. Just after the end of the Civil War, then 16-year-old twins George Washington (nicknamed "Reno") and Sara Bass were orphaned when a band of renegade ex-Confederate soldiers raided the family's Kansas farm and brutally slaughtered their parents and siblings. The twins' father, a Lutheran pastor as well as a homesteader, had brought the two up as Christians familiar with the Bible, and also trained them both to handle firearms very capably. He lived long enough after the attack to charge his two surviving kids (they'd been out on the prairie when the raiders struck) to avenge the outrage, and to rid the world of murdering evildoers. After serving justice on their family's killers in the series opener, they went on to become successful bounty hunters, despite their youth, with their ensuing adventures in the subsequent books each apparently episodic and self-contained (so the series doesn't have to be read in order).
We're not given an exact date for the events of this installment, but I'd guess it to be roughly 1867, and the twins' age by now to be about 18. Our setting here is western Missouri and the Arkansas Ozarks, a region genre fans might not associate with Westerns; but in fact, in real life, this area was as much a frontier as the contiguous Kansas and Indian Territory countryside, there was a lot of movement and economic interchange across the state lines, and lifestyles and attitudes didn't differ much on either the western or eastern sides. The tale begins in medias res, with our Avenging Angels stealthily closing in on the camp of a band of train robbers. Early on, one of these outlaws will drop the name of Rev. Eli Cable. He's an apparently mesmerizing and charismatic preacher who's building his own settlement, New Kingdom, in the Ozarks --and who may or may not be the mastermind behind this train robbery. It's up to our hero/heroine to find out the truth about that; and naturally, it won't be a simple matter of just riding up to his door and asking him.
This is a well-plotted, ably written novel, with a fast pace and a lot of action. (There's no "pornography of violence," but the body count is high, and gun/knife fight scenes, etc. are described simply and straightforwardly.) Some factors give the book a bit more depth than run-of-the-mill Westerns. Eli Cable is a highly complex character; the author looks realistically at the hatreds and grievances left on both sides in the aftermath of America's bloodiest war, in an area where the fighting was often up-close and personal guerilla war, without justifying hatred or demonizing all ex-Confederates; and the faith of some of the main characters gives a spiritual dimension to the story. (Gramlich himself isn't necessarily a Christian now, but he was raised as a Roman Catholic and treats faith sympathetically; the book, and evidently the series as a whole, is Christian-friendly.) What we would today call post-traumatic stress disorder also gets some scrutiny. Besides the Western elements, elements of the mystery genre are also deftly incorporated. Bad language is very minimal; and though there's mention of rape and prostitution, there's no sex as such. (Reno's faithfully given his heart to a young lady back home in Kansas.)
My impression of series written by multiple authors is that the main characters can tend to be drawn quite blandly, with a minimal profile that's not expanded on, so as not to confuse new-to-the-series writers. (After well over 100 books, for instance, all we really know about the Hardy boys is that Frank's blonde and Joe's dark-haired. :-) ) Here, though, both the Bass siblings come across as three-dimensional characters whom we do get to know as persons, not as stock roles; and while they're twins, they're not clones of each other. In this particular episode, the demands of the plot give Reno more "screen time" in the middle chapters that make up the longest part of the book; he'd have to be described as the main character. But Sara's role isn't negligible; she's a full (and lethal) participant in the many fight scenes, recognized by Reno as smarter and deadlier than he is, and I'd also judge her to be faster and more adept with a pistol than he is (though she admits he's better at handling a long gun). Both are likable, but she comes across as the more reserved of the two, and also as the one who still has the most anger over the tragic fate of their family.
This would be a quick read if you had a normal amount of time for reading (with our "car books," of course, Barb and I don't, hence the long time it took us!), and I think most genre fans would find it enough of a page-turner to make their reading sessions as long as possible. I'm not looking to get drawn into another long series right now, and investigated this volume only because I know the author (electronically); but it made enough of a favorable impression that, if I had handy access to other books in the series, I'd definitely check them out too!
In choosing to read this installment by itself, I guessed correctly that it can be treated as a standalone. The series premise is explained in passing near the beginning, without needing any burdensome long exposition. Just after the end of the Civil War, then 16-year-old twins George Washington (nicknamed "Reno") and Sara Bass were orphaned when a band of renegade ex-Confederate soldiers raided the family's Kansas farm and brutally slaughtered their parents and siblings. The twins' father, a Lutheran pastor as well as a homesteader, had brought the two up as Christians familiar with the Bible, and also trained them both to handle firearms very capably. He lived long enough after the attack to charge his two surviving kids (they'd been out on the prairie when the raiders struck) to avenge the outrage, and to rid the world of murdering evildoers. After serving justice on their family's killers in the series opener, they went on to become successful bounty hunters, despite their youth, with their ensuing adventures in the subsequent books each apparently episodic and self-contained (so the series doesn't have to be read in order).
We're not given an exact date for the events of this installment, but I'd guess it to be roughly 1867, and the twins' age by now to be about 18. Our setting here is western Missouri and the Arkansas Ozarks, a region genre fans might not associate with Westerns; but in fact, in real life, this area was as much a frontier as the contiguous Kansas and Indian Territory countryside, there was a lot of movement and economic interchange across the state lines, and lifestyles and attitudes didn't differ much on either the western or eastern sides. The tale begins in medias res, with our Avenging Angels stealthily closing in on the camp of a band of train robbers. Early on, one of these outlaws will drop the name of Rev. Eli Cable. He's an apparently mesmerizing and charismatic preacher who's building his own settlement, New Kingdom, in the Ozarks --and who may or may not be the mastermind behind this train robbery. It's up to our hero/heroine to find out the truth about that; and naturally, it won't be a simple matter of just riding up to his door and asking him.
This is a well-plotted, ably written novel, with a fast pace and a lot of action. (There's no "pornography of violence," but the body count is high, and gun/knife fight scenes, etc. are described simply and straightforwardly.) Some factors give the book a bit more depth than run-of-the-mill Westerns. Eli Cable is a highly complex character; the author looks realistically at the hatreds and grievances left on both sides in the aftermath of America's bloodiest war, in an area where the fighting was often up-close and personal guerilla war, without justifying hatred or demonizing all ex-Confederates; and the faith of some of the main characters gives a spiritual dimension to the story. (Gramlich himself isn't necessarily a Christian now, but he was raised as a Roman Catholic and treats faith sympathetically; the book, and evidently the series as a whole, is Christian-friendly.) What we would today call post-traumatic stress disorder also gets some scrutiny. Besides the Western elements, elements of the mystery genre are also deftly incorporated. Bad language is very minimal; and though there's mention of rape and prostitution, there's no sex as such. (Reno's faithfully given his heart to a young lady back home in Kansas.)
My impression of series written by multiple authors is that the main characters can tend to be drawn quite blandly, with a minimal profile that's not expanded on, so as not to confuse new-to-the-series writers. (After well over 100 books, for instance, all we really know about the Hardy boys is that Frank's blonde and Joe's dark-haired. :-) ) Here, though, both the Bass siblings come across as three-dimensional characters whom we do get to know as persons, not as stock roles; and while they're twins, they're not clones of each other. In this particular episode, the demands of the plot give Reno more "screen time" in the middle chapters that make up the longest part of the book; he'd have to be described as the main character. But Sara's role isn't negligible; she's a full (and lethal) participant in the many fight scenes, recognized by Reno as smarter and deadlier than he is, and I'd also judge her to be faster and more adept with a pistol than he is (though she admits he's better at handling a long gun). Both are likable, but she comes across as the more reserved of the two, and also as the one who still has the most anger over the tragic fate of their family.
This would be a quick read if you had a normal amount of time for reading (with our "car books," of course, Barb and I don't, hence the long time it took us!), and I think most genre fans would find it enough of a page-turner to make their reading sessions as long as possible. I'm not looking to get drawn into another long series right now, and investigated this volume only because I know the author (electronically); but it made enough of a favorable impression that, if I had handy access to other books in the series, I'd definitely check them out too!
December 2, 2020
Probably one of the best if not the best Western I have read so far.
Charles Gramlich writing under the name A.W. Hart literally writes a great captivating mystery/western tale that is book 7 in a Series but it can be a stand alone for sure.
If you like action, westerns, and a good mystery with a good story; then this is the right book for you.
It's time Charles Gramlich gets recognized as the Author he is. Where is his Spur Award for best Literature?
Charles Gramlich writing under the name A.W. Hart literally writes a great captivating mystery/western tale that is book 7 in a Series but it can be a stand alone for sure.
If you like action, westerns, and a good mystery with a good story; then this is the right book for you.
It's time Charles Gramlich gets recognized as the Author he is. Where is his Spur Award for best Literature?
March 4, 2020
Reno and Sarah head for Arkansas to find a preacher bad guy named Eli Cable. Reno goes undercover to clarify the extent of the preachers crimes and With Sarah's help they finally clean out the bad guys and solve the deaths of former members of the preachers church. Not a bad book with plenty of action.
March 20, 2020
Avenging Angels
Much better than the last story. Different plot line and more of a mystery . Characters are well developed and blended in well. Will have to try another story to see if it continues to improve.
Much better than the last story. Different plot line and more of a mystery . Characters are well developed and blended in well. Will have to try another story to see if it continues to improve.
June 30, 2020
Good western. Good storyline. Good writing. The Bass Twins arrive in the town of New Kingdom as Avenging Angels, seeking justice and just possibly a bit of retribution for the crimes committed against them and their family as youngsters. Recommended for western fans or anyone who likes frontier adventure. Historically believable, clean writing (well, except for the blood and shootings!), and engrossing plot with a number of threads running through it for a satisfying read.
August 20, 2024
Really fun reading
I have read several of this series from book one to this one. I like the characters and the stories also. Plenty of action with a little humor tossed in! I plan on reading the entire series. I would suggest this series to looking for a decent western!
I have read several of this series from book one to this one. I like the characters and the stories also. Plenty of action with a little humor tossed in! I plan on reading the entire series. I would suggest this series to looking for a decent western!
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews