David's Reviews > Smoke Wagon

I don't give up on books easily, and by the end of the first chapter I hated the arrogant, conceited, straight-out-of-spaghetti-western hero, Morgan Clyde. Because I so enjoyed the Widowmaker Jones westerns by the same author, I hung in a bit longer, and by the end of the book I was glad that I did.

While my first impressions of Clyde were a bit negative, the author allowed him to grow on me a bit. As I read through the book I realized that while Clyde was the central figure of the book, the novel really wasn't about him. The book is about the political and economic turmoil on the frontier and Cogburn gets it all right. The competitive railroad barons. The opportunistic people who follow the track builders in order to feed off of the workers. The anger remaining from the Civil War. The racism towards the black troops from Ft. Gibson. The arrogance of the Pinkerton people. The attitude towards the Irish immigrants. Cogburn delves into each of these via solid dialogue that utilizes western idioms, stereotypes, and language. He builds an end-of-track town, full of mud, filth, tents, and people, both evil and good. He paints a masterpiece picture of the Old West.

Cogburn gets the guns right. He knows their capabilities as well as their limitations.

Cogburn gets the horses and horsemanship right.

Cogburn not only builds a town and populates it with true-to-life characters, he provides multiple plotlines as he shows the reader how these people all want to further their own agendas, evil or good. He offers the reader insights into their hurts and triumphs. Morgan Clyde's cold indifference is really a cover for his own painful life experiences. His arrogance and confidence is a bit annoying at times.

What the reader gets is an in-depth portrait of the west that is ever bit as vivid as a Remington sketch or a C.M. Russel painting. Readers of western lore need look no further. As of right now, Brett Cogburn is my favorite western writer.