Gasher Creek - J. Birch

   2011; 323 pages.  New Author? : Yes.  Genres: Western; Murder-Mystery; Natural-or-Supernatural.  Overall Rating: 6½*/10.

 

    Last night started out pretty good for Jack Devlin.  He was winning at the card table and the liquor was flowing mighty fine at the whore house in Gasher Creek called The Ham.  True, he got into a shouting match with Sally earlier, one of the establishment’s “girls”, but they’ll work it out.  He’s kinda sweet on Sally.

 

    Jack doesn’t remember much after that, but apparently things did get even better, since the morning light found him in bed with Sally.  Alas, that’s when everything fell apart.

 

    Somebody has beaten the crap out of Sally, as evidenced by those nasty bruises all over her head and face.  Sally’s dead, and the number one suspect is the guy she was in bed with.  Jack can’t remember anything about that part of the evening, but surely he didn’t kill her, no matter how things look now.

 

    But the sad thing is, Jack has inner rage issues and was on a black-out drunk.  Even he’s not sure he didn’t do it.

 

What’s To Like...

    Gasher Creek is equal parts Classic Western and Murder-Mystery genres, with a dash of natural-or-supernatural? (or more precisely, normal-or-paranormal?) thrown in to spice things up.  The chapters are short, 52 of them in all, and they switch back and forth between the two protagonists: the suspected murderer fleeing for his life, Jack Devlin, and the tough-but-honest sheriff determined to bring Jack in and give him due process before hanging him, Tom Tracker.

 

    There are a bunch of interesting characters to meet along the way, including the half-breed, “almost-preacher” Charlie Sewell who teams up with Jack in his flight to freedom, a trio of homesteaders, and a number of hard-working whores.  It was fun to watch as the relationship between Charlie and Jack developed: which one was the more educated?  The more civilized?

 

    The sheriff’s investigation of the sudden uptick of deaths in Gasher Creek was well-paced and handled nicely.  To say more would be a spoiler, but I always enjoy “historical" and "scientific" sleuthing”, and here the facial-bruising and throat-slashing aspects of the crimes quickly warranted further study.  I also liked some of the seldom-encountered vocabulary J. Birch used, a couple examples of which are given below.

 

    The ending successfully ties up the main plot thread – who was doing all those killings, why, and in some cases, “how”.  The perpetrators all get their just desserts.  Some of the meeting-ups out on the trail seemed a bit too convenient to me, and some of the confessions seemed to come a bit too easily, but this did make for a concise conclusion to the tale.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.3/5 based on 28 ratings and 28 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.35/5 based on 20 ratings and 6 reviews

 

Kewlest New Word ...

B’hoys (n., plural) : young men of the rough-&-tumble working class culture in the late 1840s and beyond.

Others: Fustigate (v.); Capall (n., Irish), Soddy (n.).

 

 

Excerpts...

    “[He] won’t talk,” the Doc said.  “Most days he barely says a word.”

    “I’ve dealt with worse,” Tracker said.  “I once coaxed a confession out of a man they called Tweel the Tattler.”

    “So?” the Doc said.  “What’s so difficult about that?”

    “It was after they’d cut his tongue out.”  (loc. 5237)

 

    “Devlin!”

    Troy Plymouth approached him.  “A glorious day,” he said.  He reached Jack and nodded at Emily’s wagon as it rumbled down the trail.  “She looks pretty, doesn’t she?  Like a white flower, one of those—well, whatever white flowers are called.”

    Which ones?”

    “That’s it,” Troy said, clapping Jack’s shoulder.  (loc. 5915)

 

Kindle Details…

    Gasher Creek presently sells for $2.99 at Amazon, and is only offered in e-book format.  Amazon does not list any other novels by J. Birch.

 

“A man should be able to fight and fart as he pleases.”  (loc. 2308)

    There were some nits to pick in Gasher Creek.  Firstly, the book screams for another round of copy editing.  Typos, misspellings, compound words separated into individual components, and comma abuses abound, to the point where they were a distraction.  Some examples: gun powder/gunpowder, peak/peek, sun up/sunup, solider/soldier.  There were many more.

 

    Secondly, the whole “big, black coyote” angle was a letdown.  Another reviewer called it “confusing”; I’d call it a missed opportunity.  Without the beast, Gasher Creek is just another run-of-the-mill Western.  With it, and supplemented by Charlie’s mixed heritage to justify it, it could put this book in a fascinating "paranormal western" literary niche.

 

    Thirdly, the perpetrator is caught way too easily.  Some sort of tension-building device would’ve worked well.  For example, the perp could've gotten the upper hand against the Sheriff, whereby fugitive Jack is faced with the dilemma of whether he should intervene.

 

    Fourthly, a bit of research could’ve helped enhance the story.  A Google search for “Chewak” and “singultus planta” didn’t yield any pertinent hits, so I’m going to presume these sprang from the author’s imagination.  How much stronger would it have been to reference a real tribe and plant?  For instance, the Chumash tribe would ’ve been a great choice for the former; and something like Jimson weed would’ve worked well for the latter.  I really get hooked on historical fiction books when they also educate me about the History aspect.

 

    Despite all this, I still found Gasher Creek to be a fast-paced page-turner that struck a nice balance between action, mystery, and human-interest.  I think that's indicative of J. Birch’s innate writing ability.  Alas, this appears to be a one-and-done project (a bucket list item, perhaps?) even though the ending leaves open the possibility for a where-does-Jack-go-from-here sequel.

 

    6½ Stars.  The time-setting of Gasher Creek was curiously elusive.  Per the text, baseball had already been invented, and was being played recreationally, which infers the storyline took place sometime after the Civil War.  A referenced song, “Paddy Works on the Erie”, along with several others penned by Stephen Foster, dates the setting at some point after 1864.  So far, so good.

    But a player-piano also makes a cameo appearance, admittedly as a new-fangled device, and Wikipedia indicates those weren’t available until shortly after the start of the twentieth century (1900).  That's well past the age of the Wild, Wild West.