Well here we are, after a month of looking back over my reads of 2011, at my top book recommendation for the year. As I said yesterday each one of the top three is worthy of the top spot in it's own way, but what gives this one the edge is two-fold. It's a collection of short stories, and it is the first and the last stories that push it that little bit higher than all of the other thirty books that have come before it, and above all seventy-one others that I have read this year. If you've read it, you'll know what I mean, if you haven't then I recommend you get hold of a copy without delay (but you really should read the book that is a number three first).
Adventures of Cash Laramie and Gideon Miles, Vol. II by Edward A. Grainger
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This is the second volume of stories from Edward A. Grainger a.k.a David Cranmer, and although I gave Vol I five stars too, this second volume has the edge over it's predecessor in my opinion.
Vol II contains seven new stories including the novella “Origins of White Deer”, which is Cash Laramie's back story and a sensational ending story in “Reflections in a Glass of Maryland Rye”, which leaves a world of possibilities for a third volume.
Each story is well written, and really conveys what I imagine the old west to have been like. Life was hard, and justice swift, if you lived by the gun you could expect to die the same way.
Each story is an original but they all sit well together as a collection, seeing Laramie & Miles tracking down criminals and seeing justice done.
Bought up on doses of John Wayne and others, I seem to have neglected the western genre when it comes to my reading material. The adventures of Laramie and Miles however leave me wanting more, if I had to criticise, it would only be to say the book is too short.
That said both Vol I & Vol II are available on Amazon for 86p ($0.99) each, and I would recommend anyone to go and check them out, whether you consider you like westerns or not as they are both great, great reads.
Highly recommended!
View all my reviews Posted via email from Tontowilliams's Electronic Scrapbook
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