WICKED ROAD TAKEN

Debut author RLK offers a Western tale of a fearless man from the Midwest.

Joseph Reynolds grew up in the mid-1800s in western Ohio and learned to hunt at a young age to help his family survive their harsh environment. He proved to be a good shot, which was fortunate, as his father had a “weakness for the drink” and died after literally falling off a wagon. After Joseph’s sister and mother succumb to disease, he and his brother, Elijah, eventually head west. They both plan to join the U.S. Army in Texas, and in order to get there, they work as outriders on a wagon train headed to Oklahoma. It’s dicey work, but both manage to prove their worth. After the brothers enlist, they’re sent to Fort Defiant, where their orders are to fight local Apache raiding parties. As Joseph receives grueling training, Elijah, who’s “good with numbers,” manages a desk job as a paymaster. The brothers wind up in Washington, D.C., when the Civil War breaks out in 1861, and it’s just the beginning of their adventures. The narrative ultimately focuses on Joseph as he braves danger behind enemy lines during the conflict, works as a bounty hunter, and marries an Arapaho woman named White Dove. Events move very quickly throughout RLK’s novel. Joseph, as a character, is not one to mourn the many comrades he loses or fret over decisions he’s made; he’s a man of action, and, as such, the story showcases plenty of combat and death. However, although the momentum of the work is constant, portions can be dry at times, with morality presented in stark, straightforward terms with no shades of gray; men who die in battle are always characterized as good, and those who run from it are always seen as bad. Still, as Joseph shoots and rides his way across the novel, there’s always somewhere new for the story to go.

A simplistic adventure novel but one that’s never short on activity.