The Savage Trail

This story stings, bites, and gets down and dirty with action from page one to the end. It is a page turner as you travel to the old west with the characters, Starbuck and Kate as they seek the justice for what has happened to their loved ones. And Kate is one determined woman who will stop at nothing to help Grant Starbuck. This book is a keeper and the characters will sting at your heart months after you have read it. A five stars. I loved the characters of Starbuck and Kate.

Grant Starbuck, marshal of the small Texas town Comanche Wells, returns home after chasing cattle rustlers to find the town has been looted, ravaged, and most of the buildings burned by a band of bandits from across the Mexican border. Among the dead are his wife and his two small children, found burned to death in the ashes of his home. Grant does not want justice, he wants revenge and he sets out alone to hunt down and kill every one of the murders or die trying. Grant becomes even more enraged during his pursuit as he finds the raped, murdered, and mutilated bodies of some of the women the bandits kidnapped from his town. As he catches up with some of the bandits as they lay in ambush, he guns them down without mercy and continues his chase into the very heart of the bandit's lair.Although he sets out alone on his quest for vengeance, Grant gets help along the way from the likes of the Mexican Army, the US Army, and the wife of a murdered rancher, Kate Beaumont. But to say more would spoil the story. Just saddle-up and go along for the ride as Grant Starbuck blazes away with his Colt Peacemaker and frontier justice is served up in it's rawest form.

If you like fast, tough western action, you'll enjoy "The Savage Trail" by Charles Friend. This is a gritty tale of a marshal, Grant Starbuck, whose town has been raided and burned by a band of outlaws operating out of Mexico. Together with Kate Beaumont, a widow determined to find the same outlaws because they killed her husband, Starbuck follows the raiders into Mexico to a finale you'll never forget. The book has lots of fast, gritty action--no singing cowboys or psychological complications here. It's Good versus Evil, and the trail takes the reader through a cavalry charge and half-a-dozen gunfights that will have you smelling powder smoke. If you're a western fan, don't miss this one.