Mr. Hopkins weaves an intricate western mystery with a cleverness that’ll leave your mouth hanging open in surprise at the end, even as you’re thinking, I shoulda seen that coming.
Johnny Hickok—wanted for murder—has been running from the law since he was a boy of seventeen. Then a skunk-haired man from the Crucible Society offers him a promised pardon if he’ll do one thing. Bring in Cale Branton, a hardcase who kills women of ill repute by slicing their throats and leaving them in dark alleys Jack the Ripper style.
Johnny Hickok becomes Detective Jonathon Parker and heads back to Mascarada, New Mexico—the scene of his crime. A place of ghosts for him. A place he has no wish to return to. At least not until he can clear his name of the murder he was falsely accused of.
He’s haunted by the memory of a lost love he longs to regain. Struggles with the Pistolero he doesn’t want to be. Chased by a bounty hunter with a hankering to get even. And if that’s not enough, he rides into town and gets on the wrong side of a vigilante calling themselves Sons of Justice, run by a prissy lawyer named Thomas Fate. The lawyer vows to bring the murderer of the saloon girls to justice. What he doesn’t tell the good citizens of Mascarada is he’ll do it even if he has to hang half the town’s innocent men in the process.
Pistolero packs an emotional punch that left this reader shedding a few tears at one point. Mr. Hopkins creates characters you’ll fall in love with and hope like crazy they win in the end. Read him, you'll love him!

Reviewed By Margaret Marr for Amazing Author Showcase