Carter Swart, Adventures in Writing

Hunting Evil
Lou Corso Mystery Series #7

A chance encounter in a favorite restaurant sends a mild mannered man into a panic. Memories from his past, unspeakable memories, flood his mind as he recognizes a man he considers a devil-pure evil. What to do? He confronts the stranger, a tall, elegant man with a twisted ear, and follows him into the street but can't keep up as the stranger drives away. He needs help and he knows who to go to. Lou Corso, ex LAPD police detective and current security company chief, is at home alone, dozing in his chair when a scratching at his door wakes him. Ever wary, Lou pauses at the door, a faint "help me" sends a cold chill up his spine. He opens the door to find a former colleague, a PI he worked on a case with, in a bloody heap on his doorstep. Lou carries the severely injured man inside and strains to listen as the victim whispers a few words to him before the EMTs carry him away. A man's name. The client or the killer? Lou wants to find out who attacked his friend, and his instincts tell him he needs to hurry because he may be next.

    Jim Sutter, a diminutive, sad-eyed drifter with a hidden past, rides into the South Dakota cowtown of Bitter Creek in a time of savage drouth. Set upon and beaten by toughs, he is rescued by widowed rancher, Jenny Olds, who he soon comes to love. Jim decides to stay on with Jenny and soon finds himself in the middle of a blood feud between the powerful cattlemen's association and the sodbusters, led by fiery Lucas Brand.
     Hugh Tallant spearheads the fight for the ranchers, seeking to crush the sodbusters that control the vital Bitter Creek River. Tallant is aided by the notorious gunfighter Gil Fetterman and Milo Pitt, a sadistic bruiser. And before long, Sutter is torn between his desire to protect Jenny and the sodbusters and his own solemn oath to give up the gun.
     Into this brew rides a cast of lively characters, including courageous Nell Vermillion, a local shopkeeper, George Armstead, a man uncertain of his own mettle, Red West, Jenny's dying foreman, Dottie Lister, a soiled dove, Randy Pinto, a boy who has to grow up in a hurry, and gunfighter Jack Counts who makes a bargain with the devil.

Set in the American Dakota territory during the 1886 drought, Carter Swart's Bitter Creek is a compelling novel of escalating tension and blood feud between stockmen and homesteaders, as cattle die and control of the river becomes central to a brutal dispute involving at first fists, then guns. Only one man has the skill in negotiation to prevent all-out war, but he himself has given up the gun! A dramatic and exciting epic of the Old West, Bitter Creek is deftly narrated by Alan Zimmerman and highly recommended, thoroughly entertainting listening. 4 cassettes, 360 minutes.