I'm always looking for a Western to recommend. The question is not "is the Winter Family a Western?" the question is, "can I recommend this book to readers who just want to read Louis L'amour?" Nope, this is far too gritty. This is 3 miles past Unforgiven, and another 2 miles past Let There Be Blood (or Oil!) gritty. There are psychos killing for the fun of it in here and using the Civil War and the Wild West as a playground to do it. In fact, there are so many of them doing it for no reason that there is a wonder that there is anybody left in the area to actually homestead and farm.

I was actually stunned while reading some parts-almost wished someone else was reading it too so I could lean over and ask-- did you just read that too? Other parts were a bit repetitive. I loved Bill Bread and I can't say why. And the whole reason I picked this up was Chicago, but in this time period right after the fire the setting might as well be a pile of ashes, not the Chicago I just visited. Duh, me.

Anyway from all of this chaos is born a hero, and I loved that. This, however, is not that hero's story. It is the story of the chaos.