Westerns, Ralph Cotton II

  

Guns on the Border is the first Ralph Cotton book I read featuring Sam Burrack - the Arizona ranger.  Burrack is a lawman thru and thru, which makes him a little drier and less interesting to be honest.

In this book, he has a list of some of the worst vile criminals that escaped the law and he's hunting them down one by one.  The trail takes him down into the badlands of Mexico.   There he uncovers a band of American mercenaries working with corrupt federales.  They are hitting US Army supply trains and have a big job coming up.

Burrack gets tangled up in going against a whole lot of bad guys.  The premise is good, but like I said, not a big fan of the black and white lawman characters, myself.  2 out of 5.

Border Dogs has Arizona ranger, Sam Burrack working with a close partner, Maria.  When she gets kidnapped, he ends up having to work with an infamous bank robber he was after in order to rescue her from the desperadoes that took her.

There's a greater variety in characters here, and a little more entertaining than the former.  All of Cotton's books jump from good guy to bad guy perspective, but this story has multiple things going on at the same time, so you jump around more than usual.  It does make the story go faster and also allows you to piece bits together yourself.  All in all, I'd say it's 3 out 5.

Killing Plain - Burrack is back yet again.  This time he's got a sidekick, Hadley Jones.  The two of them go running after the Black Moon gang.  Jones is overzealous to get into action, Burrack is boring as ever and well... not much new here.

If you haven't read any of Cotton's Westerns, it's as good as any to start.  But if you have, and you're looking for something different or deeper - well, keep on looking.  2 out of 5.

 What do you know?  Sam Burrack runs into some Black Valley Riders and chases them out to their stronghold in the desert.

Not sure I can say there's anything different or unique about this one.  More action, less story (or character development).  Burrack takes on an entire gang in the desert.  That's pretty much the story.

Definitely 2 out of 5.

I was actually surprised by this one.  Dead Man's Canyon keeps you guessing for the entire story, as to which twin is the one still alive - the good or the bad.  All you know for certain is one brother shot the other, and nobody else in the story knows which was which either, not the girlfriend, not the lawman, and not the followers.

I felt this little trick added a layer of psychology that made it much less flat than a lot of other trigger-happy tales, and kept you paying attention to the thoughts of the surviving twin.

As much as Sam Burrack usually bores me, this one definitely gets at least a 3.5 out of 5.

Nightfall at Little Aces was pretty much a lawman, an ex-con and a gang all having their own conflicting agendas that build up to clash on the final night.

That's about as interesting as I can make this one sound.  It was, to me, mediocre at best.

2 out of 5.