The Devil Gets His Due by Peter Brandvold (Lou Prophet Western series)

The first Peter Brandvold novel I read was The Devil Gets His Due, and it set off an appreciation for the man's writing that has continued to this day. It was out of print for quite some time, but now Piccadilly Publishing has rereleased it in ebook form. Below is reprinted the review written by that first-time reader just discovering Brandvold's talent for the first time.

Lou Prophet is a bounty hunter. His motto is you don't stop until the job is done. So, when he met up with Louisa Bonaventure in Minnesota during her search for revenge on the Red River Gang that killed her family, he decided to help her out. Partly because of the reward on their leader, Handsome Dave Duvall, but also because Louisa, whom Prophet dubbed "The Vengeance Queen," was only 17 years old and might be in need of some assistance (and protection).

Since then, the duo have whittled the formerly 20 members of the Red River Gang down to one: Duvall himself, and Prophet wants to take him alone and, if possible, alive. It's part of the bounty hunter code. But "Miss Bonny-venture" wants Duvall for herself, as well, and is willing to die for the pleasure.

The Devil Gets His Due is the fourth novel by author Peter Brandvold to feature bounty hunter Lou Prophet. A prolific writer, Brandvold is the author of multiple series, including the Sheriff Stillman Once books, the Cuno Massey .45-Caliber series, and the Rogue Lawman books. He also writes under the pseudonym Frank Leslie and is reportedly one of the stable of authors writing regularly for the long-running Longarm series.

Based on the evidence of The Devil Gets His Due, Brandvold will be a new favorite. He starts out with action and keeps it coming. His grasp of character is modern yet authentic to the period, and I especially enjoyed that he doesn't take the traditional route regarding an expected love interest between Prophet and Louisa. This alone let me know I was reading a writer of imagination and originality. I've already added three more of his novels to my collection, hoping to sample each of his series in turn. Then I hope to track down some of his newest books.

The Devil's Lair by Peter Brandvold (Lou Prophet Western series)

Since the elimination of the gang that killed her family, Louisa Bonaventure has formed a partnership of sorts with Lou Prophet, bounty hunter. But their time together is limited to occasional jobs like catching the Thorson-Mahoney gang in the act of robbing a stagecoach. Otherwise, as Louisa puts it, "We both have men to hunt." So after said job is done, Louisa is not much a part of The Devil's Lair.

This novel, the sixth in the Lou Prophet "Devil" series, focuses on Prophet's delivery of the gang to Bitter Creek and how he gets drafted into defending the town from Sam Scanlon after the marshal and his deputy are lynched in the town center. Performing such work for no reward rubs Prophet the wrong way, and he's rubbed even wronger when he wakes up from a night-long drunk to find the marshal's badge pinned to his own buckskins. But if there's one thing that will make Lou Prophet cleave to a badge he doesn't want, it's finding out somebody else doesn't want him to have it.

Someone is taking potshots at Prophet anonymously, so, though being marshal is an odd situation for a man who loves his freedom to be in, he's taking it honorably. "That's the straw I drew, but believe me, I'll never get that drunk again."

The Devil's Lair feels quite a bit different from the other Lou Prophet novel I've read, The Devil Gets His Due. In fact, with its handful of gratuitous sex scenes, I'm going to guess it was originally written for an adult Western series but was rewritten at the last moment. (The marshal angle suggests Longarm, but prolific author Peter Brandvold — he also writes under the pseudonym Frank Leslie — has written for The Trailsman as well, so that is also a possibility.)

Brandvold writes intelligent, action-filled Westerns that don't stop. Plus, any writer who uses words like "surfeit" and "ilk" with confidence in his genre fiction is one I can truly admire. He rarely makes predictable choices (except where genre dictates), which makes his work all the more fascinating. The Devil's Lair has an ending one can read only with awe at its brass, and as an added bonus, the book name-checks Frank Roderus, an influence on (and a supporter of) Brandvold's writing.