Jake Logan

I found Slocum and Quantrill to be on the bad side, subpar.

Generally at some point in a Slocum book he lambasts the fools who are killed because they've got a lust for gold in their eyes (or belly or brain), fools because their greed and stupidity drove them blindly to their own deaths. This book is no different except that the entire story is about Slocum and his never-ending lust for gold, a King's Ransom (as they say). So half the book is how Slocum is trying to repeatedly get himself killed by chasing gold and other riches (Quantrill's secret, lost treasure). Slocum even finds a King's Ransom, but sticks around to be killed some more because he wants it ALL, there is a second King's Ransom to be found as well!

Dumb.

The story also takes place during two distinct time periods, the present day wild west and 20 years prior during the American Civil War; chapters jump forward and backward in time. This just seemed to make the story that much more repetitive, and only added filler rather than substance to a rather boring read.… (plus d'informations)

Slocum is what Slocum is and these books generally don't warrant reviews because they are expected to be quick reading and mildly entertaining. That said, Slocum Gets Even is beyond ridiculous. Since I gave it a single star I thought I would write a few words as to why. My paperback clocks in at 185 pages, and the last, oh, ten pages are quite good, what you’d expect from a Jake Logan pulp western. The problem is that the previous 175 pages leading up to them are beyond ridiculous. I am not even sure the story itself was edited in the correct order as several times what was there was all wonky and didn’t follow; that too was weird.… (plus d'informations)

Some of these books are fairly well written, and I took notice with this one because it had some of the best descriptors of Arizona weather that I have ever heard. Like:

"Rufus knew very well that in Arizona, it could thunder and pour on your right boot while your left stayed dry enough to light kindling."

[And.]

"There was no thunder yet, and Amos remembered that in Arizona, thunder and lightning didn't always mean rain."

"Sometimes it meant nothing, sometimes it meant hail - like the other night - and sometimes it meant wind so fierce that it snapped sapling tree trunks in half and literally drove people mad with its howl, battering sand and pelting twigs and cactus."

Rain is the most unpredictable thing in the desert, like one sunny Arizona summer day about 5 years ago when 100 people got swept away in a flash flood and 10 died. While at the same time, rain is so local that it can be pouring on one side of your house while the other is dry. Unbelievable, but true.

On the flipside, we have the inevitable Slocum is the best tracker on the planet, he would put the best, most skillful Apache to shame; he can dog a minnow across three oceans, a gnat through a blizzard, a rattler through the pitch black bowels of the earth... but then... he can't find a giant bleeding to death in a tiny, two horse town.… (plus d'informations)

I thought this was an anti-John Slocum, or far-too-stupid John Slocum to be a Slocum novel. And maybe this was an earlier Slocum book (No.5) and they hadn’t quite gotten his backstory down, but I thought in all the others I've read that he was originally from Georgia and in this one it is Arkansas. Sure he’s a man's man and so on, but it quickly didn't add up for me and I felt it was all around pretty bad.

The ending, however, was quite good and made the entire story make a whole lot more sense, but overall it just didn’t make up for the drudgery of the first 90% or so.… (plus d'informations)