Please open https://hotaudiobook.com ONLY on your standard browser Safari, Chrome, Microsoft or Firefox to download full audiobooks of your choice for free.
Title: The Stranglers
Author: Loren Estleman
Narrator: Richard Ferrone
Format: Unabridged
Length: 6 hrs and 9 mins
Language: English
Release date: 11-20-12
Publisher: Recorded Books
Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 5 votes
Genres: Fiction, Westerns
Publisher's Summary:
Each member of the five-man posse brought a special talent to the expedition, but not one of them was prepared for what greeted them at the top of a grassy slope in an aspen clearing one summer afternoon.
Members Reviews:
Great Western Writer
Gentleman makes you feel as if you're right in the old west - right down to tasting dust and smelling saddle leather. Great detail and accurate.
Another home run for Loren Estleman
Loren Estleman really knows how to write a fast-moving and engrossing western. His series about U. S. Marshal Page Murdock is a long-running one that fuses together the best of the pulp western and the historical. Every detail is pitch perfect and the action begins almost on the first page and continues up until the final page. The guy can write, period.
Five Stars
Great western novel
Four Stars
Historic western, vicious characters.
GOOD, SOLID AND FAST READ WITH PLENTY OF ACTION...NICE WESTERN
I like reading westerns from time to time and keep a stash of them in my library so that I can lay my hands on them when I need my "Western Fix." Loren D. Estleman fulfills my needs, in particular with this series which includes TheThe High Rocks (Page Murdock, US Deputy Marshall, Book 1),Stamping Ground (Page Murdock, US Deputy Marshall, Book 2),Murdock's Law (Page Murdock, US Deputy Marshall, Book 3)and now this offering,The Stranglers (Page Murdock, US Deputy Marshall, Book 4). I like my reading in this particular genre to be fast moving with plenty of action; again, this book and this series meets that criteria in spades.
In this tale of the Old West, we continue to follow the exploits of Deputy Page Murdock. Murdock, to be honest, is just slightly nicer than the "bad guys" he tracks down and brings to justice. There is little distinction between the title of Deputy Marshall and "Bounty Hunter," in the case of Murdock. I like that; swift, old time western justice with not that much regard to existing laws, such as they were at that time.
The setting is near Helena Montana in the late 1800s. Through a series of incidents, Murdock finds himself tracking down and attempting to bring to justice a group of very bad people who make a habit of dealing brutally with lawmen who go after them...i.e. they hang them...and not quickly either! I love the opening paragraph in this work:
"You hear some grotesque things about what happens to a man when he's hanged; how his face turns black and his neck stretches to three feet and he soils himself, and it's all true, except you never hear about the smell."
This book, written and published in 1984 is actually quite well written. The reader must be warned though that the body count in this one is quite high, the scenes are rather graphic and brutal and before you really get to know some of the characters, and most of them are quite well done, they get killed off. There is absolutely no sex or love interests in this work, so if that is a requirement in your westerns, then look elsewhere.
As to the main characters...most are quite like believable and the amazing thing about this work is that the author has been able to tell you quite a bit about them (as has been pointed out...most are quite likeable) with a minimum of words. Good tight writing here.
The entire fast paced story has sort of a gritty feeling to it which is another aspect of the book I like.
