Hardcase

Dave Coyle is the kind of man who makes jailers look foolish and sheriffs look slow. When he rides into Yellow Jacket, the town doesn't know whether to run or hope - because Coyle operates in the space between law and lawlessness, and nobody's ever quite sure which side he's on. Is he bandit, killer, or something stranger: a man who sells his skills to whoever can afford them, including whoever pays best that week? The job he takes on is typically impossible. An old enemy sits in a jail cell, and Coyle wants to free him - but doing so means going up against a shrewd gang leader who controls the region's rustling operations from a fortified stronghold. To pull this off, Coyle will need every trick he's got: his gun, his brains, and the kind of nerve that makes impossible odds look like suggestions. This is Western pulp at its finest - hard-boiled, morally slippery, and propelled by a hero who thinks his way through problems the way other men shoot their way through them. Luke Short wrote this as a former cowboy who knew the frontier wasn't romantic, and that authenticity gives the book its edge.