It did not take me long (relatively) after reading Sheriff Without A Badge to pick up the fourth Harbison
Mystery Western, which was the last of them that I owned at the time.
In this installment, Sheriff Harbison deals with a variety of side quests as per the usual, but the main storyline is that a man who had worked on a local farm years ago has become a successful Western novelist with a character based on Chet Harbison as the main character, and it recounts the events of Terror Near Town but with extra salaciousness and sleaze. So the townfolk start to look at him and his wife with a bit of a jaundiced eye. Meanwhile, he and his deputy and friend Pete capture a well known repeat offender as he was stealing a pig from a local widow, and they hold the dangerous miscreant without bail until his trial, but a slippery lawyer gets him off. And the man might have more thievery or revenge on his mind.
The actual murder at the Morse Inn doesn’t take place until, what, more than half way through the book? But, again, these books are westerns and now whodunits, so it works.
I finished this book last week, and last Saturday, James R. Wilder was back at ABC Books to sign his newest book. So I dragged my poor but beautiful wife up there, and apparently I made her wait whilst I talked to Wilder for an hour, leaving her starving for lunch to the point where she devised a plan to walk to a restaurant without me.
Wilder mentioned that he participates in a couple of writing groups, and that he (and they) think his writing is improving. And I have to agree, although I previously thought that the books were just growing on me. Probably they’re getting better. Undoubtedly, I will read his latest before long and maybe concur. Aside from the hunger and the pain in my underdeveloped retail muscles which screamed at me for a couple of days for standing pretty much still on carpeted concrete for an hour, the conversation with Wilder inspired me. Perhaps in 2024 I’ll actually spend some time trying to write another book instead of banging my head against modern programming paradigms in pursuit of an application that no one would use. I mean, I can write books nobody reads in my native tongue much easier.
But I bought the next book in the series and the first two for my brother for Christmas (don’t tell him), but nothing else at ABC Books, which explains why no Good Book Hunting post. I mean, the martial arts section is practically empty–just a set of martial arts flash cards of some sort that I will eventually buy because I’m a completist (I have, after all, bought two books on Tai Chi walking and a video on tae kwon do forms because that’s all they had)–and I have numerous unread books here. I glanced at the music books and found they have three books on learning to play the banjo, but I have not actually bought the banjo I saw at Relics Antique Mall. So I’ll wait until a windfall lets me make another foolish purchase before foolish book purchases in support of a potential foolish purchase.
Maybe I’m growing up.
Oh, sorry, where was I? Oh, yes, a book report. I liked it. I bought more in the line. Which is the best recommendation I can give.