Silver Shot by Gary McCarthyMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Gary McCarthy has written scores of Westerns and work-for-hire novels. This is the seventh novel in his Derby Man series, and the only one that I have read. As you may have guessed, the protagonist in this series wears a Derby style hat. Darby Buckingham is also a former boxer and circus sideshow strongman, now a writer of Western Dime Novels. Here Darby travels to a mining town and is soon followed by love interest Dolly, and a couple of comedic type sidekicks, where he gets involved with a corrupt stockbroker and con man who is duping the town, and Dolly into investing in a mining stock scheme. He’s also predictably a fine boxer and adversary for Darby in fisticuffs. So a few fistfights, some confusing stock trading, a murder or two, and some romance and jealousy ensue. Darby is an interesting character and worthy of a series. The writing, pacing, and dialog are solid, the plotting kind of seems like the author is making it up as he goes, which is fine, although some devices seemed far-fetched and unnecessary. I liked the writing and the character and would be interested in reading others in the series. I give this one three stars.
Recently republished by Wolfpack Publishing, including an omnibus of the entire series.
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