Free (Kindle) The Crooked Desert by Denis Hughes [Western Historical Action Mystery]

[ATDrake]

The Crooked Desert by the late prolific multi-genre British author Denis Hughes (ISFDB, SFE), is his vintage standalone western historical action adventure novel with strong mystery/suspense (and maybe some f/m romance) elements, starring a wandering man who takes a stranger's dying request, which turns out to be to clear a friend who was framed for murder, leading him into a complicated investigation where he tries to uncover the underlying plot of what's really going on around town as he tries to solve whodunnit with the help of the accused's daughter while the actual culprits may be gunning for her and now also him, free courtesy of publisher Endeavour Press' Venture imprint, who are e-printing it from its 1959 edition originally out from Herbert Jenkins using his Ken Kester pseudonym.

Currently free @ Amazon (available to Canadians & in the UK and pretty much everywhere else that Amazon sells worldwide, since this is being done via their KDP Select exclusive-or-else program)

Description
A crook is on the loose…

Lone wanderer Steve McCade thinks he’s seen it all until he witnesses a dying man being turned away.

The man – Joe Scruple is on his last legs, having been shot just below the heart; McCade knows the man is goner but better to die in comfort than on horseback.

With his dying breath, Scruple makes McCade promise him something:

He must save Alan Frazer from the gallows.

Frazer’s been framed for the murder of Luther Verne, who found a mine of borax – a very rare material that is more profitable than gold.

But just as Scruple is about to reveal the key witness, he’s succumbs to his wound and all McCade has to go on is ‘the Star girl’.

Before he can even get his thoughts together, McCade hears a gunshot and then the woman he saw turn away Scruple comes barging in.

It turns out she is Frazer’s daughter, one Miss Belle, and she and Joe were lovers.

Belle had no choice but to turn him away, as if Scruple put one foot in her door, he would’ve been shot down by Luke Tyson’s men.

Tyson has his fingers in a lot of pies, including the borax trade, and the law won’t touch him.

Instead, it’s Tyson who dictates whose public enemy no.1 and it was him who pushed for Alan Frazer’s hanging.

And what’s more, someone outside of Tyson’s men is trying to kill her – a gunman for hire called Louis the Creole.

The only piece of luck in this whole thing is that Tyson is delaying Frazer’s hanging, as he believes that Verne told Frazer the location of the borax.

McCade and Belle have just seven days to prove Frazer’s innocence and catch Verne’s real killer.

But Tyson is the on warpath and then there’s the mysterious employer of Louis the Creole…

Can they solve the riddle of the ‘Star Girl’ before it’s too late?

A classic of its genre, The Crooked Desert is written by one the master’s of the old Westerns. A brilliantly suspenseful story paired with heart-pounding action.

[Dr. Drib]

You had me, until 'Romance'!

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by Dr. Drib

You had me, until 'Romance'!

Romance is fake literature

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Romance is fake literature

You have more guts than I do for making a statement like that!

I would keep having nightmares that I posted on this thread by mistake:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=282247

I would be made into a sausage burger!

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by Dr. Drib

You have more guts than I do for making a statement like that!

I would keep having nightmares that I posted on this thread by mistake:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=282247

I would be made into a sausage burger!

A wise monkey knows well enough to stay out of enemy territory