Noteworthy Reads: THE MATAMOROS BULL (Rancho Diablo #9) by Colby Jackson

Readers of the popular, award-winning Rancho Diablo Western series have good reason to rejoice. Not only does MATAMOROS BULL mark a new, much-anticipated entry (ninth overall and the first one in four years), but it is an outstanding adventure well worth the wait. What's more, according to the author's note preceding the story, we've got three more titles (including a soon-to-be-released novella) to look forward to, coming in rapid order. The novel-length works—excluding the novella and starting with MATAMOROS BULL—will comprise a trilogy called “Storm Season” during which various members of the Rancho Diablo cast will be caught up in adventures that draw them away from the ranch itself.

As followers of the series likely already know, one of its unique features is that the titles to date have been written by three top-notch authors—James Reasoner, Bill Crider, and Mel Odom—all sharing the “Colby Jackson” byline and contributing different entries. This time around (as well as for the aforementioned novella and all of the “Storm Season” trilogy) it is Mr. Odom behind the curtain and, as already mentioned, he turns in a bravura performance.

Although many of the Flying D regulars we are familiar with from past adventures (Sam Blaylock, boss of the ranch and patriarch of the Blaylock family; Mike Tucker, his long time friend and right hand man; Gaby Darbins, another old friend and chuck wagon cook, etc.) are present here, it is Sam's youngest son Elijah who takes center stage for most of MATAMOROS BULL. He is a fifteen-year-old boy accompanying his father and a handful of wranglers on a trip into Old Mexico to buy a special breeding bull for the ranch. The adventures he experiences—both as part of the ranch outfit and, more importantly, when separated from the others—is a coming of age tale that is exciting, sometimes humorous, often dangerous, at times poignant, and plays out at a breakneck pace. Much of what Elijah has to deal with revolves around protecting his father's prize bull and trying to come to grips with his personal feelings for the lovely, sassy, ever challenging Ofelia—a young Mexican beauty he meets down in Mexico.

In a matter of only a few event-filled days, Elijah transitions from boy to man—in the eyes of himself and many others—before this tale is done, and makes his mark as a character we will be wanting to see more of in future Rancho Diablo tales. But, at the same time, author Jackson/Odom leaves Sam Blaylock and most of the rest of his crew in a cliff-hanger of a situation that will make readers count the minutes until we see what befalls them in the next episode, tentatively titled GHOST TOWN GUNDOWN

Good stuff. Strongly recommended!