REVIEW: Nowhere To Run (A Maggie O'Bannen Western Book 3)

There are a couple of nice set-ups in this, the third Maggie O’Bannen tale by Joe Slade AKA Jo Walpole. Firstly it’s neat how Slade has Maggie appear in a series of dime novels (something that was introduced in book # 2, if I remember rightly), and it is one of these dime novels that triggers the plot in this book (*). Secondly, it’s neat the way that plot unfolds – with Maggie being forced to play the hunted one in a deadly game of cat and mouse. I’ve always been a sucker for such plots ever since I read Richard Connell’s The Most Dangerous Game as a young teenager.

This book is as fast-paced and as relentless as volumes #1 and #2 and Maggie returns to stage centre as she fights to protect her friends and colleagues. You won’t need to have read the first two volumes to enjoy this one, but that said, doing so will help you understand Maggie’s back story and who several of the characters are (plus you’ll enjoy those books!). In this one, we’ve hardly started and we’ve had a bank robbery, a stage-coach hold-up, a couple of killings, a shoot-out at a remote settlement, the odd amputation, and some lovin’, too. Then the book really takes off…

The main centre-piece is that aforementioned deadly game of cat and mouse as an unarmed Maggie has to somehow make it from one end of town to the other. She is ably assisted in this scene by the bounty hunter Brad Cooper (prior to his role in A Star Is Born !). Bullets fly, and the writing is explicit and gritty. I won’t give away too much, but the ending sets up volume # 4 nicely.

Recommended, so long as you like blood, gore, and relentless western gun-slinging action!

(*) There’s also a throwaway mention in this book that suggests the pictures of Maggie in the dime novel are starting to get close enough to the real thing, so that people can recognize her from the illustrations. I wonder if this means that whoever is writing the dime novels, or at least illustrating them, is someone close to Maggie, or at least out there in the real west, as opposed to being back in a New York tenement somewhere? Perhaps we’ll learn more as Maggie’s adventures continue.

Derek Rutherford 5* Amazon review 22 October 2018

NB: This review was done for the original release of this title. The book content has changed  but not in any way that affects this review and the reviewer has given their permission for it to be posted.