The Scorpion Killers // The Tombstone Trail — Ray Hogan

The Scorpion Killers

The cruel Mexican General, Jamarillo -- the one they call the Scorpion -- has been assassinated, and the four young Mexicans believed to have done the deed were led by an American known only as Amigo. But who was this mystery man?
Shawn Starbuck has reason to believe it might well be his missing brother Ben, last known to be using the name of Damon Friend. Since “amigo” translates to friend, it is a distinct possibility.
But the trail leading to Amigo is treacherous and it leads Starbuck to the Mexican border near El Paso, north to the Rio Grande Valley and the mountains of New Mexico, and on to Dodge City. More than one man will die before the mystery man “Amigo” is revealed.

The Tombstone Trail

Starbuck was en route to the new, booming town of Tombstone when he ran into the girl named Glory, survivor of a stagecoach ambush by Apaches. Forced to protect her, he fights off more Apache attacks before they reach her father's silver mine and get themselves involved in murder, a generally lawless community, and a deadly attempt by an unknown adversary to seize the mine. Someone seemed determined to drive them away and take over, but who was behind the conspiracy? Not just local outlaws. Someone higher up, someone closer to home. But who? It was up to Starbuck to find out, if he could live that long!

Ray Hogan is an author who has inspired a loyal following ever since he published his first Western novel Ex-marshal in 1956. Hogan was born in Willow Springs, Missouri, where his father was town marshal. At five the Hogan family moved to Albuquerque where Ray Hogan lived in the foothills of the Sandia and Manzano mountains. His father was on the Albuquerque police force and, in later years, owned the Overland Hotel. It was while listening to his father and other old-timers tell tales from the past that Ray was inspired to recast these tales in fiction. From the beginning he did exhaustive research into the history and the people of the Old West and the walls of his study were lined with various firearms, spurs, pictures, books, and memorabilia, about all of which he could talk in dramatic detail. Among his most popular works are the series of books about Shawn Starbuck, a searcher in a quest for a lost brother, who has a clear sense of right and wrong and who is willing to stand up and be counted when it is a question of fairness or justice. His other major series is about lawman John Rye, whose reputation has earned him the sobriquet The Doomsday Marshal. ‘I've attempted to capture the courage and bravery of those men and women that lived out west and the dangers and problems they had to overcome,” Hogan once remarked. If his lawmen protagonists seem sometimes larger than life, it is because they are men of integrity, heroes who through grit, character and common sense are able to overcome the obstacles they encounter despite often overwhelming odds. This same grit of character can also be found in Hogan's heroines and, in The Vengeance of Fortuna West, Hogan wrote a gripping and totally believable account of a woman who takes up the badge and tracks the men who killed her lawman husband by ambush. No less intriguing in her way is Nellie Dupray, convicted of rustling in The Glory Trail. Above all, what is most impressive about Hogan's Western novels is the consistent quality with which each is crafted, the compelling depth of his characters, and his ability to juxtapose the complexities of human conflict into narratives always as intensely interesting as they are emotionally involving.