WRITTEN IN FIRE

DeAndrea (Killed in Fringe Time, p. 1310, etc.) inaugurates a third series starring US marshal Lobo Blacke, sidelined by a bullet in his spine, and his former amanuensis Quinn Booker, a New York dime novelist he's brought to Le Four, Wyoming, to work on his newspaper, the Witness. Blacke rumbles about getting even with the man who retired him into a wheelchair—he thinks it may well be Lucius Jenkins, first citizen of Le Four—but before he can make a move against Jenkins, beyond insinuating Booker into the culture-mad bosom of his family, a bandit attacks Booker's buckboard, leaving him for dead, and follows with a more successful attack against photographer Edward Vessemer. Which of Vessemer's pictures got the photographer into trouble, and with whom? Thick-skulled sheriff Asa Harlan is so convinced that the bandit was Jenkins's craven bodyguard, Marvin Hastings, that he doesn't mind shooting Hastings dead. But Booker and Blacke, finding a dying message in one of Vessemer's undeveloped photos, manage to expose the real murderer. Booker's bright, chatty style is perfect for his frontier Ironside's unassuming debut.