Gunslinger Justice Ends With a BANG!

Yikes!! Guess who forgot to release the reviews for Gunslinger Justice, the sixth book in the Jake Silver series. This title has only been out for almost a full year. My BAD!!! Heavens. I need to fire myself!

So, better late than never, here's a reivew by Barbra Lee.

Gunslinger Justice Ends With a BANG

Jere D. James, author of the Jake Silver Series, has ended the highly popular six-book series with Gunslinger Justice. Set in Arizona and Mexico in the late 1800s, James gives the reader an original, fast-paced, clever plot and unique characters. The ending of this book is utterly unexpected and stunning.

In Gunslinger Justice, the sixth and final book in the Jake Silver Series, Western author Jere D. James produces a fast-paced, original plot and unique characters, including Deputy U.S. Marshal Jake Silver,  gunslinger Richard Moody, the cunning Vincent Cooper, and Mexican kingpin Diego Fuentes.

Gunman Richard Moody, thinking he has left his nemesis Vincent Cooper dead in the Superstition Mountains, heads to Mexico to avenge the death of Jake Silver at the hands of kingpin Diego Fuentes and his army of desperadoes. Unbeknownst to Moody, however, Silver is very much alive. Fuentes has proven to be a resourceful albeit violent man, and has held Silver as a "captive guest" for many months.

James  portrays Fuentes as a complex character, charming and philosophical yet mercilessly violent. Just when one begins to like Fuentes, the man commits a heinous act against someone. And now, Fuentes tells Marshal Jake Silver that he can at last earn his freedom if he kills Richard Moody, the man who "stole" Fuentes' woman who Moody and Silver traveled to Mexico to rescue from captivity.

Jake's dilemma is intriguing and the author does an excellent job delving into the marshal's conundrum. Jake wants his freedom and to return home, but he knows he can't outdraw Moody, and he doesn't want to kill his friend even though Moody, like Fuentes, is an assassin.

As Fuentes and his small army travel north from Guerrero Negro toward the border with Jake, Moody is riding south to avenge Jake's death by killing Fuentes. By sheer chance the two men meet in a cantina in Ensenada. Here is where the author shines in ability. James is able to introduce humor as well as incredible tension in the following chapters. Moody and Silver make a desperate attempt to escape, only to be hunted down in the desert by Fuentes and his desperadoes. After leaving the Mexican enough water to make it on foot to a settlement, the two find themselves once again in dire straits.

But the author is not content to stop with this showdown and escape attempt. The plot thickens further when Moody discovers that Vincent Cooper is in fact not dead and that his sister, Katherine Reed, is in mortal danger. Needless to say, Silver won't let his friend handle the problem by himself.

Readers of Jere D. James' books know to leave the entire night free. James has a knack for seizing and holding one's attention from the first page to the last. And that's the worst thing about these historical novels - they are impossible to put down.