The Rattlesnake Season

The Rattlesnake Season is a top-shelf novel from first to last. That it is classified as a Western is a bonus to fans of that genre--but this is a book for anyone who appreciates fine writing and tight storytelling. Sweazy's rich, engrossing tale involves the reemergence of a man pummeled by adversity, but who rises again and again, squaring his shoulders and doing what needs to be done. In lesser hands such a protagonist could slip into heroic parody, but here these admirable character traits are rendered with care and realism. There are very few new novels that offer the bold sense of an epic while keeping readers turning the pages, but this one does. This is a book to give to a friend who says, "I haven't read a Western in a while. What do you recommend?" You'll be handing them the first book in a series that has all the earmarks of a classic. I look forward to the coming books in this series about Josiah Wolfe, Texas Ranger, by this seasoned writer who, if The Rattlesnake Season is any indication, will give us years of reading pleasure.

I picked The Rattlesnake Season up on a whim. But boy this book is no whim. It's right up there with Elmer Kelton. Very, very good stuff for those who love well-written westerns. Thank you Larry Sweazy! Keep going!

This is a remarkable book. The writing is exquisite, clean, and poetic. It is a book to be savored. I found myself re-reading sentences for their poetic imagery. The characters are well-defined and you will be thinking about them long after you've finished the book. Josiah wolfe is a man whose soul is numbed by the horrors of the civil war and by the death of his family. The book is not somber. It is about Josiah slowly coming back to life while dealing with one of the most evil villians in fiction. There are enough twists and turns to the plot to even make Raymond Chandler proud. Remember a book you have read that you didn't want to stop reading and yet, did not want it to end? This is one of those books. Congratulations Mr. Sweazy for a job well-done. Thank you.

Josiah has his hands full - and then he must escort a prisoner. I won't recount the plot since that has already been done in the previous two reviews. I will however, tell you how impressed I was by the story that Mr. Sweazy has penned and how convinced I am that Rattlesnake Season is the heralding of a new voice in the western genre. Rattlesnake Season is a story that is told with grit and a sense of place and time that is all too often lacking in many recently published western novels. This author has done his research - and it shows. Seldom do I read a novel anymore - and even less so is this true of many western novels - where I can feel the author's passion for his story as well as for his craft. I suspect that Mr. Sweazy will find his audience far sooner than any of us would suspect and that they will remain with him for a long and productive career. Read the book.

This is the first full-length book by Mr. Sweazy, and he is off to a pretty good start. The book takes place in the 1870's, in Texas U.S.A. Mr. Sweazy put a lot of effort, time, and research into making it very realistic, and authentic for that time period. It is a slow-paced story, which probably fits into the Western Genre (this is the first Western that I have ever read), but the pages fly-by as you want to keep reading. The story of a Texas Ranger, escorting a criminal back to trial, is pretty good. There were times when I really wanted to strangle the person who wrote the back cover 'blurb', as that does not really do the book justice. There is more than just the escorting part, and the escorting part falls apart quite rapidly. The editing of the book was really good for the first half, then kind of fell apart in the last half of the book. I was disappointed in the editing, but that can be fixed in future printings! This book probably would have been a five-star rating for me, EXCEPT for the ending of the book. Building up to the climax was very good. The climax of the book was quite a let down for me, and that might be the way that Westerns are done, but it didn't 'feel right' to me! Mr. Sweazy has a contract for three more books in this series, and I can't wait for the next one.