The Convict Trail

by Joseph A. West, Ralph Compton

Transporting six cold-blooded convicts caged in a prison wagon across hard country, Deputy Marshal Logan Kane needs to watch his back and keep his Colt close at hand. There are rustlers, lynch mobs, and a New Orleans gang to contend with—not to mention the convicts’ cronies looking to bust them loose.

Kane is about to have his own cage rattled as he tries to keep this ride from being his last...

Genres: Westerns

295 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published December 1, 2008

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

[Sue · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was pretty good but the ONLY sentence in Spanish was wrong. Page 224: "Hay fuera de los caballos." Should have been: "Hay caballos afuera". Punctuation is different in English and Spanish; if you don't know what you're doing, don't attempt it.

Does not speak well for the editor or the publishing company, and I would expect better from Signet.

Also, the book cover did not relate to what happened in the book. The cover depicts the marshal with his badge plain view, right side of jacket. The book mentioned, no less than three times, (first is on page 5) that the marshal carried his badge covered, on his belt. The horses are galloping. The book mentions mules and never galloping.

This editor/publisher/author insults the readers.

[Cynthia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kind of bloody. Oh the trials the marshal had to go through.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

An enjoyable book, easy to ready and kept my attention. It does seem to take some unnecessary side quests but overall I enjoyed my read.