Book Review: Brothers in Arms by Philip McCormac

This Book was provided to me for free to provide an honest review.

Title: Brothers in Arms

Author: Philip McCormac

ISBN: 978-1533230089

Link to Authors web site: http://www.philipmccormac.co.uk/

Genre: Western

Print Length: 194 pages

Plot synopsis:

Butch Shilton is an out of work cowboy. Joe Peters is an out of work carpenter. After a series of skirmishes, they find themselves locked in the cellar of a way station facing a stretch in prison. However, a gang of vicious outlaws rides into the way station and massacres the inhabitants. Hidden in the cellar, Butch and Joe are the only survivors. After breaking free they decide to track down the killers.

Cover: A great cover that describes the genre well.

Brothers in Arms might be classed as a revenge story, but it is more than that. Indeed the main protagonists have no real beef with those they are pursuing - it is more a matter of keeping a promise. As the story progresses Butch and Joe get themselves into a great number of uncomfortable situations. Sometimes I got annoyed with them for getting into some of the scrapes, but they are just such nice guys that you can believe that they would actually do it. This kept me wanting to read more to find out what they would do next and how they were going to get out of it.

The characters are well drawn and I got a real sense of who they are and what they are about. The development of the characters is nice and easy - they are not foisted on the reader in one big introduction, but they grow as the story develops. The main gang of outlaws are really mean and it would be great to know something about how they ended up being so nasty, but not knowing did not detract from the story – maybe this will form the subject of another book.

I found the narrative flowed and was easy to read. The settings were well described and well integrated into the narrative. The author painted some images that I could clearly imagine in my mind. I loved the dialogue, of which there is a lot in the book. It was fully integrated into the narrative, witty and was used well to develop the characters – I get the sense that the author enjoys writing dialogue and it shows.

As a self-published author I am keen that editorial standards are maintained. Other than a few minor typos the editing in this book was good. I had no complaints about the copying editing.

What do others think?

I wrote my review without looking at what others thought about the novel, but I thought it would be interesting to have a look at other reviews. I looked at the reviews on Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com and Goodreads.com and only included those ratings that also have a verbal review.

At the time of writing there were seven reviews on Amazon.co.uk with an average score of 4.4 stars, with 6 giving 4 stars or above. The general conclusion is that the book delivers what the readers are looking for – action, adventure and shoot-outs, with an additional helping of wit. One reviewer felt that the violence was too strong. It has to be said that there are number of violent scenes, but I found the descriptions of them to be done in such a way that the actual graphic detail is left to the reader to imagine; this is especially true for the particularly gruesome acts of violence that happened in the way station.

There were eight reviews on Amazon.com (some of them repeated from Amazon.co.uk). The results are virtually identical to those of Amazon.co.uk, but less concern was expressed about the violence in the book.

On Goodreads.com there were twelve reviews, giving an average of 3.85 stars. Nine gave rating of 4 stars or above. There was also a rating of 1 star: this reviewer did not like the violence at all! Which explains the lower average score.

Conclusion

Overall I would highly recommend this novel to other readers.