Sidewinder

I really enjoyed Jory Sherman's Sidewinder. After surviving a rattlesnake attack, rancher Brad Storm befriends a couple of Native Americans who make a necklace out of the snake's rattles and name him Sidewinder. A deal is struck and Brad finds himself escorting some cattle to the Indian village for a large profit. He is unaware that some ruthless rustlers have an eye on his ranch... He returns to find his house torched, his cattle rustled and his wife kidnapped. I enjoyed Mr. Sherman's writing. His description is almost painterly, very detailed and at times unexpectedly lovely. Which makes it almost funny that he is also expert at building tension and action. To my mind, the pacing was off a bit. After a slow beginning detailing Brad's interaction with the natives the second half of the book just barrels along as the bad guys attack and Sidewinder seeks his vengeance. The book is always interesting, but the switch in tone was jarring. His characters don't really have any depth to them, but his good guys are good (in a nice touch, Brad picks up the habit of shaking the snake's rattles to spook his enemies, but picturing Brad standing there, six gun in hand shaking rattles made a funny picture in my head) and his villains are interesting and very, very bad (the villainous Coombs family and their fortress of a home was one of the highlights of the book for me). I appreciated his presentation of Natives and the positive portrayal of the Mexican characters (who don't always fare as well in Westerns as they do here). The book could have used some editing. The character Wading Crow's name changes to Walking Crow and back. It's implied that Brad was at home sleeping as he is tracking a missing cow and he cuts his hand to clean out the snakebite only to have the Natives do it when they find him. These are little errors that I don't blame Mr. Sherman for, but I wish Berkeley would have done a better job of editing. I was very impressed with my first Jory Sherman book. The beginning was slow, but it was interesting and well written. The action that makes up the second half was terrific and I was sad to see the book end. Oh yeah, and I'd like to give some credit to the eye-catching cover. I liked the style and hope the same artist is used on any future books in the series.