Dark Trail

This is one of the darkest novels that I have ever read. Set in the west, it portrays the roughness of the people. Many are brutal rogues, yet there are repeated acts of nobility, courage and loyalty. Unfortunately, nearly all of that is misplaced; at the end people are dead and for no real purpose other than the dark amusement of an invited crowd. Tom Adair is a very wealthy man who wants to give his invited guests a dramatic and unusual form of entertainment. His decision is to stage a gunfight between two men. Frank Evans is an aging gunfighter who has "stolen" the girlfriend (Beth) of Ben Rittenauer, another gunfighter. Frank is the husband of Sarah, the ex-wife of Leo Guild, and she left Leo for Frank. Leo has still not completely recovered from the abandonment, so Sarah continues to use Leo when she needs help. Frank is a vary bad man, the book opens with Leo saving Frank from imprisonment, where he was being kept for the brother of a man Frank had killed. The requests on the part of Sarah and the actions of Leo continue throughout the book. While Sarah is in many ways a good woman, her exploitation of Leo's continued feelings for her are inexcusable. She left Leo for another man and yet continues to ask and beg him to risk his life to save Frank. He always does so, acting out one of the oddest co-dependency relationships ever described in a novel. The ending is a dark one, people are killed and Leo leaves the area. There is no purpose to the deaths, no sufficient cause, and no real benefits to anyone. It is an end that was somewhat predictable, given the consistent behaviors of the principle characters.