the year in books [XXIII]

Here we have the wrap-up of my American Westerns for 2019. William Johnstone's Hell's Half Acre: The Butcher of Baxter Pass was a quick read, but honestly it wasn't as good as I thought it would be. Loren D. Estleman's The Stranglers and City of Widows were pretty good; I expect as much from Estleman. Patrick Dewitt's The Sisters Brothers was a delightful little romp, more in the line of comedy than anything else. The best books of this western cycle, however, were the first two entries in Terry C. Johnston's nine-book Titus Bass saga. The first, Dance on the Wind, tells of how Titus left his father's farm in Rabbit Hash, Kentucky (#represent!) to become a boatman on the Mississippi River. He dreams of going west and seeing the vast herds of buffalo reported by the early 19th century Mountain Men, and Buffalo Palace is the story of how he crosses the Great Plains, gets his wish, and becomes a beaver trapper in the Rocky Mountains. Buffalo Palace was a deal slower than Dance on the Wind, but the next entry in the saga, Crack in the Sky, looks like it could be a doozy (and, yes, it's on my 2020 Reading Queue).