I enjoyed Sigmund Brouwer’s Christian-oriented Nick Barrett mystery novel, Out of the Shadows. I didn’t enjoy the sequel, Crown of Thorns, quite as much, so I won’t review it here (it dealt with racial issues, and was as awkward as such stories generally are).

But when I saw Brouwer had written a series of Western stories, I thought, hey. I’ve been meaning to read more Westerns. I’ll give it a try. I bought the Sam Keaton Wild West Mysteries Omnibus. There was much to enjoy there, but in the end it didn’t work for me.

Sam Keaton (an alias) was once a bounty hunter. Now he’s a cowboy, trying to live a peaceable life and avoid an old wanted poster. One day in Laramie, Wyoming he comes upon a big man trying to kick a little Indian to death in an alley. He’s no great lover of Indians, but the injustice of the thing rankles him, so he tries to stop it. The big man goes for his gun, and the next thing he knows the man is dead, and Sam is on the run again. Oddly enough, the Indian follows right at his heels.

The “irksome Injun,” as he calls him, turns out to be a sort of emissary, delivering messages periodically from a mysterious woman named Rebecca Montcalm. The messages give Sam instructions, with a promise of gold.

The story was interesting, but it seemed a little contrived to me. Improbable situations staged to orchestrate plot points. Insufficient credibility.

But my big problem was what I saw as major factual errors. This especially applied in the area of Colt’s handguns, about which the author knows far less than he thinks. He overestimates the ubiquity of the brass cartridge in 1871. He thinks gunfighters fanned their pistols (though in the second book he describes fanning in a way that makes me wonder what he’s talking about). He thinks you can unload a Colt by holding it upside down and shaking it.

But worst of all, he says really mean things about Wild Bill Hickok. I consider Wild Bill one of my pards, and I don’t cotton to that kind o’ talk.

So I didn’t finish the second book.

I will try the next Nick Barret book though, if I see it. Because the author is clearly learning his craft.