REVIEW: THE BLACK RIDER, by S J Bounds.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars by Iris Chacon.

(An electronic copy was provided in exchange for an honest, objective review.)

This is a clean, pleasant western that harkens back to the days of good guys in white hats and school marms who have never been kissed. The story was originally published in 1952, when Roy Rogers and Hopalong Cassidy were at the top of their fame, but the prose is spare and easy to read. This is not the convoluted antiquarian language of Zane Grey, but rather more like the lean, action-based stories by Louis L’Amour.

I would recommend this novel to anyone from ten years of age to one hundred. Fair warning, though, this story moves more sedately than 21st-century shoot-’em-ups. The mystery is not difficult to solve, and the romance is certainly less than torrid.

(SEMI-SPOILER ALERT!)  If you like a good, old-fashioned cowboy story where the bad guys lose and the noble deputy sheriff gets the girl in the end, this is for you. It would make an excellent gift for a young boy or girl who wants to be a cowboy someday.