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The Hangman Feeds the Jackal: A Gothic Western
Elijah Valero is a gunfighter afflicted with terrifying hallucinations, including a pervasive one of The Hangman out to kill him.
Dogged by the relentless specter of the Hangman, Valero mistakenly kills innocent victims and is forced to hide in an abandoned monastery for his own safety and for those of others. Once there, he encounters far greater dangers than the imaginary Hangman, and gains a bid for redemption as he faces down some silver-hungry drifters out to terrorize a town for its riches. Fans of the Weird West and Gothic Horror will find satisfaction in THE HANGMAN FEEDS THE JACKAL.
Dogged by the relentless specter of the Hangman, Valero mistakenly kills innocent victims and is forced to hide in an abandoned monastery for his own safety and for those of others. Once there, he encounters far greater dangers than the imaginary Hangman, and gains a bid for redemption as he faces down some silver-hungry drifters out to terrorize a town for its riches. Fans of the Weird West and Gothic Horror will find satisfaction in THE HANGMAN FEEDS THE JACKAL.
290 pages, Paperback
Published June 14, 2022
7 people are currently reading
584 people want to read
About the author
Coy Hall
35 books238 followersCoy Hall lives in West Virginia, where he splits time as a professor of history and author. His books include Grimoire of the Four Impostors (2021), The Hangman Feeds the Jackal: A Gothic Western (2022), The Promise of Plague Wolves (2023), and A Séance for Wicked King Death (2023).
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 77 reviews
June 23, 2022
You know what...I'm going to keep this simple.
What I look for most when I read is well-written prose, an immersive setting, strong characterization, and most of all to be entertained. In The Hangman Feeds the Jackal I got all of these.
I don't think I've ever read a western before (oh, the shame!), but I loved this one. The Gothic/supernatural (the spider) elements added an original twist to the narrative. Some scenes were graphically portrayed, but necessarily so, and will stick with me for a long time. I would LOVE to see this optioned for a movie.
Okay...I very rarely star rate, but I'm going to make an exception here. 5 stars all the way!
What I look for most when I read is well-written prose, an immersive setting, strong characterization, and most of all to be entertained. In The Hangman Feeds the Jackal I got all of these.
I don't think I've ever read a western before (oh, the shame!), but I loved this one. The Gothic/supernatural (the spider) elements added an original twist to the narrative. Some scenes were graphically portrayed, but necessarily so, and will stick with me for a long time. I would LOVE to see this optioned for a movie.
Okay...I very rarely star rate, but I'm going to make an exception here. 5 stars all the way!
November 3, 2022
A fantastic read
Boy, did I ever enjoy this book. Coy Hall has pacing down to a fine art in his novel, The Hangman Feeds The Jackal. He brought the setting and atmosphere to life so well, I could almost taste the dirt from the dusty trail in my mouth. His ability to bring his characters to life only sweetened the pot. Meet Elijah Valero, one of the best anti-heroes that I’ve come across in a long time and a talking spider that may or may not be just in his head. This Gothic Western is not one to be missed and is an entertaining read that will keep you captivated until it’s exciting end. Highly recommended.
Boy, did I ever enjoy this book. Coy Hall has pacing down to a fine art in his novel, The Hangman Feeds The Jackal. He brought the setting and atmosphere to life so well, I could almost taste the dirt from the dusty trail in my mouth. His ability to bring his characters to life only sweetened the pot. Meet Elijah Valero, one of the best anti-heroes that I’ve come across in a long time and a talking spider that may or may not be just in his head. This Gothic Western is not one to be missed and is an entertaining read that will keep you captivated until it’s exciting end. Highly recommended.
January 24, 2024
As I'm already a fan of Westerns, I was keen to check this one out.
It's such an intense page-turner of a read. I had it read in a couple of sittings.
The characters are superb.
It's very atmospheric, bleak, and violent.
I really like Coy Hall's writing style, and I'm excited to read some more of his work.
It's such an intense page-turner of a read. I had it read in a couple of sittings.
The characters are superb.
It's very atmospheric, bleak, and violent.
I really like Coy Hall's writing style, and I'm excited to read some more of his work.
January 10, 2024
Dark, Bleak, Fantastic!
My first read from Hall, but certainly not my last. I loved the atmosphere, pacing, and characters in this story, and the writing is absolutely spectacular. Reading THE HANGMAN FEEDS THE JACKAL was an intense, unforgettable experience. Highly recommended!
My first read from Hall, but certainly not my last. I loved the atmosphere, pacing, and characters in this story, and the writing is absolutely spectacular. Reading THE HANGMAN FEEDS THE JACKAL was an intense, unforgettable experience. Highly recommended!
September 3, 2023
My first read of Coy Halls work. This is FANTASTIC!
The way everything is described is so poetic, bleak and beautiful. I was transfixed to this world he has created in the run down town of Bone of Wellington. The characters in this are amazing. Valero a gunslinger haunted by his past and suffering hallucinations was some of the best character development I have read in a long time. Hes a hard, harsh and unforgiving man however you cant help but love him all the same. I really enjoyed how we learn more and more about his background as it progressed with memories of his childhood coming back to him during the book. We see his kind nature develop as well from the brutal violence he inflicts in the opening chapters.
The plot is engaging, violent and riveting to read. I honestly have not read a book with such magical prose in a long time. The way Coy paints a scene left vivid pictures in my mind. It's the characters which shine in this book however the story is one which stays with you through its moments of absolute brutal violence, tension and redemption.
I cannot recommend this more highly even for a non western fiction fans.
The way everything is described is so poetic, bleak and beautiful. I was transfixed to this world he has created in the run down town of Bone of Wellington. The characters in this are amazing. Valero a gunslinger haunted by his past and suffering hallucinations was some of the best character development I have read in a long time. Hes a hard, harsh and unforgiving man however you cant help but love him all the same. I really enjoyed how we learn more and more about his background as it progressed with memories of his childhood coming back to him during the book. We see his kind nature develop as well from the brutal violence he inflicts in the opening chapters.
The plot is engaging, violent and riveting to read. I honestly have not read a book with such magical prose in a long time. The way Coy paints a scene left vivid pictures in my mind. It's the characters which shine in this book however the story is one which stays with you through its moments of absolute brutal violence, tension and redemption.
I cannot recommend this more highly even for a non western fiction fans.
July 29, 2022
Wow, what a ride in the Old West! THE HANGMAN FEEDS THE JACKAL is broken down into four books, and the pacing and flow of the storytelling are phenomenal. The characters live and breathe on the page and I was thoroughly invested in them, especially haunted gunslinger Elijah Valero and a mean and ugly bastard named Corbin. Heck, I even liked a horse named Maureen. Coy Hall is a brilliant craftsman of prose, and was impressed in my introduction to his writing here. This is a love letter to Westerns, and I have to say I loved the book. I want to spend more time in Bone-of-Wellington!
July 20, 2022
Can someone who promises to deliver the disparate pleasures of both the Gothic and the Western deliver?
Coy Hall can.
This is a terrific story with an unconventional hero (Hall did his homework on schizophrenia), imagistic writing(a bug-strewn floor is described as "every footstep ends with a crunch"), a great cast of memorable characters, a profound understanding and empathy for animals, and then there's the carnage, My God, the carnage. Hall's stated intention was to do his own take on the Spaghetti Western genre and he has two set-pieces in the story I won't soon forget.
To sum up, there's a composure and confidence in everything the writer attempts here and he attempts quite a lot. I can hardly wait for the sequel.
Coy Hall can.
This is a terrific story with an unconventional hero (Hall did his homework on schizophrenia), imagistic writing(a bug-strewn floor is described as "every footstep ends with a crunch"), a great cast of memorable characters, a profound understanding and empathy for animals, and then there's the carnage, My God, the carnage. Hall's stated intention was to do his own take on the Spaghetti Western genre and he has two set-pieces in the story I won't soon forget.
To sum up, there's a composure and confidence in everything the writer attempts here and he attempts quite a lot. I can hardly wait for the sequel.
October 18, 2022
With The Hangman Feeds the Jackal Coy Hall proves that "Gothic Western" is far more than an enticing tagline. Hall has produced a consistently tense western that recalls Radcliffe and Poe as much as Portis or McCarthy.
While conventional westerns depict the West as a place of rejuvenation, freedom, novelty, and transcendence, Hall casts his characters against a backdrop of decay. Instead of carving untread trials, our protagonists trample upon the ruins of the old. The environment is as sinister and confining as it is freeing.
In the classic gothic spirit—in which characters struggle against intergenerational mental illness—Hall casts a lead gunslinger burdened by his inherited instability, to which violence is not a necessary evil but a corrupting force. This means Valero's eventual use of force lacks any moral certitude and creates additional layers of emotional complexity. A stark contrast to the paragons of John Wayne films. These layers of nuance drew me further into the characters. Each moment became a puzzle box to decode, an engaging equation to work out. Hall provides repeating motifs—gallows and spiders being quite prominent—that help reiterate the book's theme of human deterioration.
Hall ties the novel's thematic explorations into the rise and fall of dramatic tension. A protagonist without clear-headed certainty amplifies the suspense. The continual dread of the looming hangman and spider lurks behind every scene. As with the aforementioned Radcliffe, there is a distinct sense of unease behind every moment and the specter of haunted pasts. When not basking in classic gothic aesthetics, the novel called to mind films like Lee Jeong-beom's The Man From Nowhere. Yet in a world so bleak, Hall casts a small beacon of light in the form of the novel's animal characters, all of whom play an important role in the drama.
The Hangman Feeds the Jackal is a creative exploration of the western genre with great attention to motif and atmosphere.
While conventional westerns depict the West as a place of rejuvenation, freedom, novelty, and transcendence, Hall casts his characters against a backdrop of decay. Instead of carving untread trials, our protagonists trample upon the ruins of the old. The environment is as sinister and confining as it is freeing.
In the classic gothic spirit—in which characters struggle against intergenerational mental illness—Hall casts a lead gunslinger burdened by his inherited instability, to which violence is not a necessary evil but a corrupting force. This means Valero's eventual use of force lacks any moral certitude and creates additional layers of emotional complexity. A stark contrast to the paragons of John Wayne films. These layers of nuance drew me further into the characters. Each moment became a puzzle box to decode, an engaging equation to work out. Hall provides repeating motifs—gallows and spiders being quite prominent—that help reiterate the book's theme of human deterioration.
Hall ties the novel's thematic explorations into the rise and fall of dramatic tension. A protagonist without clear-headed certainty amplifies the suspense. The continual dread of the looming hangman and spider lurks behind every scene. As with the aforementioned Radcliffe, there is a distinct sense of unease behind every moment and the specter of haunted pasts. When not basking in classic gothic aesthetics, the novel called to mind films like Lee Jeong-beom's The Man From Nowhere. Yet in a world so bleak, Hall casts a small beacon of light in the form of the novel's animal characters, all of whom play an important role in the drama.
The Hangman Feeds the Jackal is a creative exploration of the western genre with great attention to motif and atmosphere.
June 14, 2022
The Hangman Feeds the Jackal reads like Joe Lansdale wrote a western for Lucio Fulci. Coy Hall has a knack for putting his obvious love for Italian horror into different genres. This time, it’s a gothic western. The pacing that Coy uses here is unmatched; like a great western everything is a build. Characters and their relationships grow like trees throughout the story making the ending of this fantastic novel a forest with so many interwoven branches you’re just waiting for the bear to fall out of the top and wreck all of them. Why is the bear up there? I can’t explain that one. One thing about Coy’s writing that I have admired since his Grimoires of the Four Imposters, is that he manages to mix some truly violent and heavy scenes into his stories without making it feel like the whole scene was setup for the brutality. There’s a realness here that isn’t often reached in most horror fiction. Coy manages to hit you with images of death and decay that sit in the bottom of your stomach like a year old loaf of bread. It’s heavy, it weighs you down, it has a real and visible effect that isn’t easily glossed over. The weight of death and the way Coy writes it presents it as the truly monumental event that it is and not just a throw away moment that progresses a tale. I want to mention how much I loved Valero and Constance in this book, I also do not want to spoil anything, so I will say what you have are two characters who reflect each other in completely different ways but for me, became the focal point of the story. Give this a read when you can, don’t let it hit your TBR pile, just let it skip that shelf and land in your hands. K thx.
March 4, 2022
Coy Hall has once again demonstrated how impressive his ability is in detailing not only environment but his penchant for character development. He drags you into the pages to be touched by the fingers of a boiling sun, or feel the chill of a cold moonlit night, smell the fetid odor of rotting bodies and moldered bones left behind to be savaged by rats, to beat your boots into a town dusted with neglect and ribboned with mud.
Out of all, I had my eyes set on Valero, and enjoyed his disturbing nature. There was one scene I still reflect on when thinking back. Taking place in the confines of a stable, it was a ruthless, cold-blooded piece that had quite the effect on my jaw--leaving it open with such graphic detail. Chopped into 'Four Books' The Hangman Feeds the Jackal was an excellent story that puts you in the boots of each character, opens your mind to a grim world, and so much more. Would I recommend this silver hunting adventure? You bet your ass I would. If you're unfamiliar with the author, this is an excellent starting point, one that will surely solidify your love for his work.
5/5 Spiders!
Out of all, I had my eyes set on Valero, and enjoyed his disturbing nature. There was one scene I still reflect on when thinking back. Taking place in the confines of a stable, it was a ruthless, cold-blooded piece that had quite the effect on my jaw--leaving it open with such graphic detail. Chopped into 'Four Books' The Hangman Feeds the Jackal was an excellent story that puts you in the boots of each character, opens your mind to a grim world, and so much more. Would I recommend this silver hunting adventure? You bet your ass I would. If you're unfamiliar with the author, this is an excellent starting point, one that will surely solidify your love for his work.
5/5 Spiders!
May 10, 2022
Subtitled A Gothic Western, Coy Hall’s novel The Hangman Feeds the Jackal immediately brings to mind the 1974 classic, Richard Brautigan’s TheHawkline Monster. Both books fall squarely within the Western genre, but where Brautigan amplifies elements of the (weird) gothic, Professor Hall focuses the macabre. One zigs, where the other zags. One could argue that The Hawkline Monster is a proto-Weird Western, in the tradition of Joe R. Lansdale’s Reverend Mercer stories. The Hangman Feeds the Jackal in my view, has more in common with Scott Phillips’ 2004 offering, Cottonwood, than Dead in the West. There is nothing overtly supernatural in Professor Hall’s novel: the elements of the macabre are perpetrated by human beings. This Western concerns itself with evil, to be sure, but it is the evil that men do, which makes it all the more disturbing.
Check out the link for my full review of The Hangman Feeds the Jackal.
https://noselloutproductions.com/?p=99
Check out the link for my full review of The Hangman Feeds the Jackal.
https://noselloutproductions.com/?p=99
September 22, 2022
Amazing book and a amazing author
May 11, 2023
Beautiful written novel. At times gritty and others poetic, this is a very special novel by a very special kind of writer.
Great things coming this way I reckon
Great things coming this way I reckon
June 22, 2022
The only doubt I had about this book was whether it could match Hall's spectacular Grimoire of the Four Impostors. Those concerns were quickly chased away as I fell under the spell of this story and realised the author had astonishingly surpassed the high level of his previous work. This gothic western is of course haunting and sombre but there are layers to the superb storytelling. The colourful characters speak to the reader with such intimacy that it's impossible to not be completely captivated. Eli Valero a strong vehicle to drag the reader through a wretched saw-mill community, past murder, and straight into the face of violent deeds. He's an amazing anti-hero and Hall writes him perfectly. Tough, yet vulnerable and damaged. Eli Valero is broken and although his past is filled with innocent victims we root for him. Hall manages this by presenting the man at his most vulnerable while introducing us to the most wretched of villians. We all need vengeance by the second half of the book and it's a roller coaster ride of emotions as we will him to succeed. Coy Hall has the skill to blow you away before you've even managed to draw your gun and readers will ask for many more books like this. To be clear I was sad when I finished the book. Genuinely sad. This is a writer capable of weaving incredible worlds and allowing you to tag along for the ride. It would be remiss of you to turn your back on this journey.
October 22, 2022
Score: ⭐⭐⭐⭐✻(4,25 out of 5 stars)
Full review text: https://vueltaspodcast.wordpress.com/...
Interview with Coy Hall: https://vueltaspodcast.wordpress.com/...
The Hangman Feeds the Jackal: A Gothic Western is an excellent horror novel by Coy Hall, and a really original twist on the genre. I feel that giving a numeric rate to this book is somehow unfair, as it is really unique, so in the end, my score is more a reflection of my enjoyment while reading because I think the craft is marvelous, and that it is really brave to touch some themes as mental illnesses in a horror setting. I have to admit that I was a little bit scared of the western subgenre from a horror author, mostly due to my bad experience with The Gunslinger, but this novel has managed to get a place among my favourite 10 horror plays. Let's go into details.
The novel starts following Elijah Valero, an outlaw and a gunman, who is seeking refuge in the old ruins of a monastery. The encounter of an old man, also refuging in the same ruins, and the subsequent acts will show us how the mind of Valero works. The mysterious Spyder person, who is whispering in Valero's ear, and guiding his acts, supposedly to help him avoid getting caught by the Hagman, is a good reflection of his mind. Valero is a sick person, somebody who is fighting against his own demons, against this mind, probably a sort of paranoid schizophrenia (disclaimer: this is not a diagnosis), which is aggravated by what he experienced in the past. I wouldn't say he is a psychopath per sé, but his fame precedes him.
Making an interesting use of multi POVs, we will soon know Felix, whose horrendous acts are not more but a reflection of his psychopathic personality. In a scene that remembers us that we should not be too comfy, as we are in a horror novel, Felix assassins all his family and runs away, reaching the same monastery where Valero is staying. All of these mark the start of a great story, a gothic western, where our characters and their decisions will gain importance, keeping Valero in the main spotlight, but where the actions of Felix and the people who he joins will get capital importance.
Not wanting to incur spoilers, but basically, Felix and Elijah act as different faces of the same coin, exemplifying how our acts, and sometimes just a supportive person, can bring these people to different extremes. Elijah is a person whose inner demons are persecuting him, but his encounter with the gravedigger of the town will help him to have a redemption arc, which will be marked just by somebody showing some empathy to him, somebody who doesn't treat Valero as a dog (and I seriously enjoyed this arc, because it feels so natural). On the other hand, Felix gets involved with some criminals, and people who only feed her natural tendency to do evil, making him a bigger monster than he was at the start.
The action gets a place in a frontier place of the West, near Mexico, in the best style for a good western. The inclusion of some locations as it can be the monastery also helps to bring the gothic touch to the mix, as it can also be said from the hour where the main action happens. I would also like to take a moment to admire how the prose is used in this novel, with short and precise paragraphs, making the pace frenetic, using the words as a scalpel sectioning body parts. Shooting scenes are extremely well described, being super clear on what's happening in each moment, but keeping an adequate level of hidden chaos in the background.
The use of flashbacks allows us to know more about Valero, the abuses he suffered in his childhood, the mental problems that his mother suffered (probably the same kind he is suffering right now), and how that has shaped his past. But again, this is a story that talks about redemption, and how people who suffer a mental illness can reach redemption with the help of a good person, in a mime on how nowadays the main problem with this kind of illness is invisibilization.
I really enjoyed reading this novel, while having that discomfort sensation that a good horror book should give to you. I think this story is great for horror lovers and something that western aficionados can also enjoy. The Hangman Feeds the Jackal is a great mix between two really different genres and has become one of my favourite horror novels.
Full review text: https://vueltaspodcast.wordpress.com/...
Interview with Coy Hall: https://vueltaspodcast.wordpress.com/...
The Hangman Feeds the Jackal: A Gothic Western is an excellent horror novel by Coy Hall, and a really original twist on the genre. I feel that giving a numeric rate to this book is somehow unfair, as it is really unique, so in the end, my score is more a reflection of my enjoyment while reading because I think the craft is marvelous, and that it is really brave to touch some themes as mental illnesses in a horror setting. I have to admit that I was a little bit scared of the western subgenre from a horror author, mostly due to my bad experience with The Gunslinger, but this novel has managed to get a place among my favourite 10 horror plays. Let's go into details.
The novel starts following Elijah Valero, an outlaw and a gunman, who is seeking refuge in the old ruins of a monastery. The encounter of an old man, also refuging in the same ruins, and the subsequent acts will show us how the mind of Valero works. The mysterious Spyder person, who is whispering in Valero's ear, and guiding his acts, supposedly to help him avoid getting caught by the Hagman, is a good reflection of his mind. Valero is a sick person, somebody who is fighting against his own demons, against this mind, probably a sort of paranoid schizophrenia (disclaimer: this is not a diagnosis), which is aggravated by what he experienced in the past. I wouldn't say he is a psychopath per sé, but his fame precedes him.
Making an interesting use of multi POVs, we will soon know Felix, whose horrendous acts are not more but a reflection of his psychopathic personality. In a scene that remembers us that we should not be too comfy, as we are in a horror novel, Felix assassins all his family and runs away, reaching the same monastery where Valero is staying. All of these mark the start of a great story, a gothic western, where our characters and their decisions will gain importance, keeping Valero in the main spotlight, but where the actions of Felix and the people who he joins will get capital importance.
Not wanting to incur spoilers, but basically, Felix and Elijah act as different faces of the same coin, exemplifying how our acts, and sometimes just a supportive person, can bring these people to different extremes. Elijah is a person whose inner demons are persecuting him, but his encounter with the gravedigger of the town will help him to have a redemption arc, which will be marked just by somebody showing some empathy to him, somebody who doesn't treat Valero as a dog (and I seriously enjoyed this arc, because it feels so natural). On the other hand, Felix gets involved with some criminals, and people who only feed her natural tendency to do evil, making him a bigger monster than he was at the start.
The action gets a place in a frontier place of the West, near Mexico, in the best style for a good western. The inclusion of some locations as it can be the monastery also helps to bring the gothic touch to the mix, as it can also be said from the hour where the main action happens. I would also like to take a moment to admire how the prose is used in this novel, with short and precise paragraphs, making the pace frenetic, using the words as a scalpel sectioning body parts. Shooting scenes are extremely well described, being super clear on what's happening in each moment, but keeping an adequate level of hidden chaos in the background.
The use of flashbacks allows us to know more about Valero, the abuses he suffered in his childhood, the mental problems that his mother suffered (probably the same kind he is suffering right now), and how that has shaped his past. But again, this is a story that talks about redemption, and how people who suffer a mental illness can reach redemption with the help of a good person, in a mime on how nowadays the main problem with this kind of illness is invisibilization.
I really enjoyed reading this novel, while having that discomfort sensation that a good horror book should give to you. I think this story is great for horror lovers and something that western aficionados can also enjoy. The Hangman Feeds the Jackal is a great mix between two really different genres and has become one of my favourite horror novels.
June 17, 2022
Started this on a sunny afternoon in the garden and finished early evening, still in the garden. Utterly absorbing and atmospheric tale of love, loss and redemption. The setting and atmosphere is crafted with a care and skill that is often lacking in many books, whilst the characters find a place in your heart and pull you in with them. The tormented Elijah Valero is someone I will not forget. I hope he finds some peace. A brilliant piece of story-telling. Bravo.
I haven't been doing star ratings for a while but I will for this book - take the 5 star and double it.
I haven't been doing star ratings for a while but I will for this book - take the 5 star and double it.
January 15, 2024
In “The Hangman Feeds the Jackal”, Coy Hall brings his rich layered storytelling talents to the unforgiving, grubby universe of the Old West. It is a match made in gothic Hell. We’re somewhere in late 18th century America, the Civil War is over, trains reach remote towns of tents and ramshackle cabins to support the booming lumber business, and the squalor of Victorian tenements has spread like a cancer to what was once open land and pristine rivers. The land is sick and so are the men. Cruelty is endemic, ignorance widespread, and justice feeble. Enter Eli Valero, a former gunslinger, the ghost of his former self, haunted and hallucinating, barely hanging on to life. He doesn’t choose to be involved in the violent events that rock a small town, but gets drawn in, because of a horse and a dog. They, more than the humans, deserve to be saved. This is splendid writing where the horror is visceral, as are the incursions into the fantastic when we get in Valero’s head.
July 24, 2022
Coy Hall does it again! This time in the Western genre. This feels like a Clint Eastwood adventure, if it had more gore and mental illness. Hall’s bleak description brings this small hovel of a town to life with intricate clouds of gloom, and the contained setting provides a wealth of familiarity for our heroes and villains to make their choices. This story has everything you could want in a Western and more — rope tight tension, lost treasure, good heroes, gray anti-heroes, murderous villains — all painted in shades of reality only Hall is capable of orchestrating. Animal lovers rejoice.
January 21, 2024
A good enjoyable read even for someone who doesn't enjoy westerns.
September 12, 2022
great book
Coy really made the characters come alive. It read good and I loved how it played out at the end.
Coy really made the characters come alive. It read good and I loved how it played out at the end.
October 12, 2022
The last book I read with a mood comparable to this has to be Blood Meridian. Coy Hall's masterpiece harnesses the same brute poetry, the same complement of rugged landscapes with squalor and violence. Western lovers will swoon at the attention to detail, the knowledgeability needed to evoke such an authentic, gritty feel. Horror lovers will swoon at the atmospheric dread, unceasing, the explosions of blood-splatter, the immaculate imagery of gore and putrefaction. Hall's descriptions of carnage hold their own even against Cormac's. He writes with the omniscient economy of a pulp master. I couldn't help but marvel at the mechanics. Every paragraph is fine-tuned, optimized with a technician's sensitivity. Half the characters are villains, cold-blooded killers, yet none are one-dimensional. The darkest minds are plumbed, the sickest deviancies explored, but the writing crackles along like a brushfire, so it's never a grueling read. Quite the opposite. I have a certifiable bloodlust for more of Coy Hall's twisted, beautiful prose.
October 13, 2022
A Dark and Gritty Spin on the Classic Western
In a lot of ways, "The Hangman Feeds the Jackal" is a really easy book to recommend. At its core, it's a well-told tale that creatively and effectively toys with some of the most tried-and-true and well-worn elements of the genre while still providing the essence of what makes a good, "classic" western work.
The setting is fully realized and rich with detail, the characters are layered, nuanced, and interesting, and the story is compelling, twisty, and ultimately quite satisfying apart from a few minor quibbles that I didn't find difficult to overlook in the interest of enjoying the ride.
In short, if you're a fan of westerns, horror, and the junctions where psychological and philosophical concepts intersect and blur, "The Hangman Feeds the Jackal" is a book you should absolutely read.
The spider commands it.
In a lot of ways, "The Hangman Feeds the Jackal" is a really easy book to recommend. At its core, it's a well-told tale that creatively and effectively toys with some of the most tried-and-true and well-worn elements of the genre while still providing the essence of what makes a good, "classic" western work.
The setting is fully realized and rich with detail, the characters are layered, nuanced, and interesting, and the story is compelling, twisty, and ultimately quite satisfying apart from a few minor quibbles that I didn't find difficult to overlook in the interest of enjoying the ride.
In short, if you're a fan of westerns, horror, and the junctions where psychological and philosophical concepts intersect and blur, "The Hangman Feeds the Jackal" is a book you should absolutely read.
The spider commands it.
December 10, 2024
A brutal western, one that deserves a film with an Ennio Morricone score and gallons of theatrical blood. An old and haunted gunslinger must face down a trio of twisted psychopaths looking for lost silver, and deal with his own trauma as the years of being an unrepentant killer are catching up to him. Hall creates something brutal and beautiful here.
July 10, 2022
Being an account of how The Austrian was won over to Western's
Coy Hall’s novel, The Hangman feeds the Jackal, is at its heart, a western written by an established Horror writer, with paranormal/psychological overtones. The horror injected into the novel takes the form of an unrelenting camera lens on the myriad deaths that occur in the pages you flick through, unable to pull yourself from the relentless march of Hall’s plot. The character work and world-building are sublime - I found myself shaking my head multiple times in admiration of the build towards the powerhouse ending Coy leads us by the nose to, unable to look away and wanting it all never to end.
And this is a Western.
Elijah Valero is the perfectly flawed hero of the tale, though wonderfully absent from a large percentage of the book, as Hall trains his razor-sharp focus on his other main characters. In fact, almost all of the characters were so well-realized, it was hard to honestly say there were any side characters – even the damn stable boy had me grinning from ear to ear because of how he was written. The bad guys are despicable. The flawed sheriff has you rooting for him and his stubborn refusal to die. Valero is kick ass.
This book is phenomenal. "Roller-coaster" doesn’t even begin to describe it. I considered reading it a second time right after I finished because I didn’t want to leave the world I had just devoured. I might very well have affected a Clint Eastward voice to my reading every time Valero spoke. I know I wanted to say “Pardner” to my friends when I met them. What Hall has achieved here is nothing short of remarkable – he got me reading (and loving) a Western. Not only that, I didn't want to stop. I need more.
Kudos, Coy.
The ending is immensely satisfying. The violence sudden and wonderfully clean in its presentation, horror through perfect description. It is raw, brutal, and unflinching. It is mesmerizing and gut-wrenching. It is magnificent.
Brilliant. Outstanding work, Coy.
5 out of 5 ⭐ ‘s
Coy Hall’s novel, The Hangman feeds the Jackal, is at its heart, a western written by an established Horror writer, with paranormal/psychological overtones. The horror injected into the novel takes the form of an unrelenting camera lens on the myriad deaths that occur in the pages you flick through, unable to pull yourself from the relentless march of Hall’s plot. The character work and world-building are sublime - I found myself shaking my head multiple times in admiration of the build towards the powerhouse ending Coy leads us by the nose to, unable to look away and wanting it all never to end.
And this is a Western.
Elijah Valero is the perfectly flawed hero of the tale, though wonderfully absent from a large percentage of the book, as Hall trains his razor-sharp focus on his other main characters. In fact, almost all of the characters were so well-realized, it was hard to honestly say there were any side characters – even the damn stable boy had me grinning from ear to ear because of how he was written. The bad guys are despicable. The flawed sheriff has you rooting for him and his stubborn refusal to die. Valero is kick ass.
This book is phenomenal. "Roller-coaster" doesn’t even begin to describe it. I considered reading it a second time right after I finished because I didn’t want to leave the world I had just devoured. I might very well have affected a Clint Eastward voice to my reading every time Valero spoke. I know I wanted to say “Pardner” to my friends when I met them. What Hall has achieved here is nothing short of remarkable – he got me reading (and loving) a Western. Not only that, I didn't want to stop. I need more.
Kudos, Coy.
The ending is immensely satisfying. The violence sudden and wonderfully clean in its presentation, horror through perfect description. It is raw, brutal, and unflinching. It is mesmerizing and gut-wrenching. It is magnificent.
Brilliant. Outstanding work, Coy.
5 out of 5 ⭐ ‘s
July 25, 2022
Coy Hall brings us another pulse-pounding historical fiction tale, offering a wildly unique spin on a familiar genre. HANGMAN begins among the crumbling ruins of a Spanish monastery in the foothills of the Klamath Mountains. This is the Old West, but Hall reminds us that it is built upon a much older colonial empire, one that has long since turned to dust. These first few pages tell you everything you need to know about the distinction between what Hall calls “Gothic Western” and those mid-century television Westerns some of us might remember. In Hall’s Western motif, there is no idealist spark driving society through a wilderness of possibilities. His version is a sort of purgatory built on the decaying remains of an equally-doomed enterprise. And among these ruins walks the killer Elijah Valero, who is so disturbed and emaciated, one might mistake him for the undead. While Elijah may be a killer, he is a killer with a conscience. We see him wrestle with his emotional afflictions, sometimes shaking them off and sometimes succumbing to them. He is curiously kind to animals, and this, more than anything, is what elevates him from a wayward rogue to something of an anti-hero. Valero might tolerate murder, but he will not abide an outlaw who treats his horse cruelly. The story is lyrically lush, with plenty of deliciously disturbing scenes—right up to the apocalyptic third act. For a Western, it is far more McCarthy than L’Amour, and that’s exactly what I signed up for. I highly recommend this gritty meditation on violence.
July 16, 2022
"Gravedigger, when you dig my grave..."
I first encountered Coy Hall's antihero Eli Valero in the pages of Broadswords & Blasters. In short form, the character came across as a welcome, fairly straightforward homage to Spaghetti Western gunslingers like Django and Sartana. With a full novel in which to flesh out the character more three-dimensionally, along with a rich supporting cast, Hall takes a surprisingly different method of attack, with a slower burn and a more sinister tone. No one uses historical detail and atmospheric description to build mood quite like Hall does, and he paints this dying frontier town and the nearby haunted abbey so I could smell the dirt and rot on everyone and everything. I also appreciated how we meet Valero strung out at the end of his rope (so to speak), truly a shadow of his legendary reputation, and though he rises to the occasion, in a nice subversion of convention, never quite seems to be back at 100% throughout the story. I often found myself reminded of the films High Plains Drifter and The Proposition, where everyone's at least somewhat out of their minds from heatstroke, isolation, and paranoia, of the former's ambiguous insinuation of the supernatural and the latter's stark, almost casual ugliness to the ensuing brutality. I only felt knocked out of it a little near the end, by a slightly out-of-place contrivance to allow for a more conventional, old fashioned Wild West showdown. In the end, Hall perhaps leaves us with as many questions as answers about ol' Valero, but if that means we're due to meet back up with the character further on down the trail, I'm all for it.
I first encountered Coy Hall's antihero Eli Valero in the pages of Broadswords & Blasters. In short form, the character came across as a welcome, fairly straightforward homage to Spaghetti Western gunslingers like Django and Sartana. With a full novel in which to flesh out the character more three-dimensionally, along with a rich supporting cast, Hall takes a surprisingly different method of attack, with a slower burn and a more sinister tone. No one uses historical detail and atmospheric description to build mood quite like Hall does, and he paints this dying frontier town and the nearby haunted abbey so I could smell the dirt and rot on everyone and everything. I also appreciated how we meet Valero strung out at the end of his rope (so to speak), truly a shadow of his legendary reputation, and though he rises to the occasion, in a nice subversion of convention, never quite seems to be back at 100% throughout the story. I often found myself reminded of the films High Plains Drifter and The Proposition, where everyone's at least somewhat out of their minds from heatstroke, isolation, and paranoia, of the former's ambiguous insinuation of the supernatural and the latter's stark, almost casual ugliness to the ensuing brutality. I only felt knocked out of it a little near the end, by a slightly out-of-place contrivance to allow for a more conventional, old fashioned Wild West showdown. In the end, Hall perhaps leaves us with as many questions as answers about ol' Valero, but if that means we're due to meet back up with the character further on down the trail, I'm all for it.
June 18, 2022
Absorbing is the best way to describe The Hangman Feeds the Jackal. The pacing was excellent, so much so that I ended up bingeing the novel over the course of a night and morning. This is the second book I've read by Coy Hall, the first being his Grimoire of the Four Impostors. Like Grimoire, this is historical fiction.
Hall subtitled the book "A Gothic Western," a label unique to me. You'll find no supernatural horrors herein, but I find the genre, if you want to call it that, fittingly named. The horror here is existential and the evil is that of man, with Elijah Valero battling mental illness, and the town of Bone-of-Wellington battling two bloodthirsty, almost ghoulish men and an evil-by-nurture protege.
Valero is a character with layers and depth. Corny, perhaps, but he got in my heart. I found myself fascinated by his turbulence and danger. His love for animals, be it Sophia or Maureen, teased a human from the scruff. I'm hoping for more Valero stories.
Hall subtitled the book "A Gothic Western," a label unique to me. You'll find no supernatural horrors herein, but I find the genre, if you want to call it that, fittingly named. The horror here is existential and the evil is that of man, with Elijah Valero battling mental illness, and the town of Bone-of-Wellington battling two bloodthirsty, almost ghoulish men and an evil-by-nurture protege.
Valero is a character with layers and depth. Corny, perhaps, but he got in my heart. I found myself fascinated by his turbulence and danger. His love for animals, be it Sophia or Maureen, teased a human from the scruff. I'm hoping for more Valero stories.
November 2, 2024
This gothic western horror is bleak, coated in bullets and blood, and atmospheric as hell. This past year I've been drawn to western horror and this is one of the best.
Eli Valero has visions which haunt him. Hallucinations and a voice in his head compells him to kill innocent people who he believes is the Hangman, a nightmarish man (perhaps more) which he encountered as a kid.
After a grisly brutal murder of a family, Valero leaves the abandoned monastery where he's been hiding out and, reluctantly, agrees to help the locals track down a trio of psychopathic killers seeking a rumoured treasure. Redemption comes with a price though.
This book puts you firmly in the world of this town with characters who are fantastically realized. These are mainly bad men doing mainly bad things. It's gritty, dirty, and dark. But there are others who want to do the right thing, although doing so comes with a price tag inked in blood.
Several characters provide the tone for the narrative, their stories weaving in and out seamlessly as situations bring a tension like a rubber band about to snap.
A novel of regret, revenge, redemption, and cold blooded atrocities, I very highly recommend it.
Eli Valero has visions which haunt him. Hallucinations and a voice in his head compells him to kill innocent people who he believes is the Hangman, a nightmarish man (perhaps more) which he encountered as a kid.
After a grisly brutal murder of a family, Valero leaves the abandoned monastery where he's been hiding out and, reluctantly, agrees to help the locals track down a trio of psychopathic killers seeking a rumoured treasure. Redemption comes with a price though.
This book puts you firmly in the world of this town with characters who are fantastically realized. These are mainly bad men doing mainly bad things. It's gritty, dirty, and dark. But there are others who want to do the right thing, although doing so comes with a price tag inked in blood.
Several characters provide the tone for the narrative, their stories weaving in and out seamlessly as situations bring a tension like a rubber band about to snap.
A novel of regret, revenge, redemption, and cold blooded atrocities, I very highly recommend it.
May 3, 2023
This is my first dive into both Coy's work and this genre, and I have not been disappointed. Coy paints a wonderfully atmospheric picture which makes you feel like you are on this journey alongside these vibrant characters. It left me feeling like I knew each one intimately.
Looking forward to reading more from this extremely talented author.
Looking forward to reading more from this extremely talented author.
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