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Follow The Stone (an Emmett Love Western) (2013)

by John Locke(Favorite Author)

3.89 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

1935670484 (ISBN13: 9781935670483)

languge

English

genre

Mystery & Thriller

publisher

Telemachus Press, LLC

series

Emmett Love

review 1: This book was offered free at Amazon.com - certainly an incentive for me - as is the fact that I've enjoyed other books by John Locke (most notably a couple of his Donovan Creed series). But this one is not like the others; it's dubbed "an irreverent Western adventure" that's set in the wild West. The most recently I read a western, if I recall correctly, was the summer I decided to plow through every single Zane Grey book on my dad's bookshelves - easily a dozen - and that was back in 1955, give or take a year.Maybe it was the relatively short 279 pages - heck, I could do that in half a day if I let the laundry wait - or maybe I was persuaded by the number of good reviews from other readers. Still, I surprised myself, since it's rare that I pick up anything other than som... moree kind of mystery or thriller. But pick this one up I did, and by golly-gum, I didn't put it down till it was finished.This is the first in a series of four, I believe, featuring former gunslinger Emmett Love; and it grabbed me right from the first page or two when Emmett, who narrates the whole thing, said his horse "blew a loud snort, which I won't bother translatin'." The plot follows his adventures as he travels west to deliver a mail-order bride, a bunch of rowdy prostitutes and a woman everyone except Emmett consider to be a witch. Ever at the ready is Emmett's rarely seen and even more rarely heard friend Shrug, who throws a mean stone even though he walks like a crab.Oh yes, another thing got my attention early on: Phoebe, the mail-order bride, was heading to Wichita from Philadelphia to meet the man she'd agreed to marry - a guy by the name of Hiram Pickett. I don't know of any relatives in Kansas (and anyway, at the time of this story, it wasn't yet a state), but since Pickett is my family name I couldn't wait to find out if her pig in a poke would be wallowing in mud or carrying a silk purse.Yes, it's a little silly in spots, and the "cowboy" dialogue does get a bit tiresome (as in overused apostrophes - the above-mentioned "translatin'" is a case in point). Still, gol-durn it, the whole trip is a hoot, filled with enough adventures and misadventures that kept me turning the pages just to see what would happen next. And as Locke would have it, I'm looking forward to reading the other three in the series.
review 2: Good if you like: Tales of the old west, gunslingers, portrayals of how life probably really was, traveling/journey stories, hints of the supernatural.Bad if you have problems with: Whores, violence, profanity, nudity, supernatural elements.I'm not familiar enough with the genre of Westerns for my review to state whether it's a particularly good one or not in that regard, but otherwise I can say I liked it.The cliche of a good hearted gunslinger and a whore with a lovely face and a heart of gold is strong in this one. I admit to having snorted a few chapters in when that cliche was slapped in the reader's face like a wet fish. But I soldiered on and it did get more enjoyable. (I rarely stop reading a book. It has to be very, very bad for me not to finish.)The writing is in the "gets the job done" category and though not terribly nuanced or elegant it works. There's not a whole lot of plot to speak of, other than following a band of people through their journey West. I found myself wondering how thorough the author's research was, and how much of the narrative was true to history. I think a good bit of it could be, and he had me believing the rest and that's an author's job in my opinion.This was a quick read with little depth to slow you down. It was entertaining and I was left wondering about the rest of the books in this series. If I have the time and inclination to pick up another Western I'll probably seek out the next installment. less

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