For your first time published, I'm no literary critic, but you can have my vote for a bang-up job.

It was an interesting story line and it kept my interest up, good character development. I felt that I would know Tyrel, John, Tug, Mitchell, Jackson and all the rest of the characters.

If Cotton Smith has written other Westerns of this quality, I would like to read them, short or long stories. Also, is he planning to continue writing more Western novels? I certainly hope so. I'm looking forward to it. It would be interesting to have some of the characters of "Dark Trail to Dodge" in the next story.

After reading all the great reviews on Dark Trail to Dodge, how could I not read it? It was great from page one. I'm a huge fan of Kirby Jonas books, and he'll always be my favorite--better than Louis L'Amour. But Cotton Smith is not far behind. With Cotton Smith and Kirby Jonas and maybe Elmer Kelton, you really don't need anyone else! If you like this book, try Legend of the Tumbleweed, by Kirby Jonas.

Dark Trail to Dodge is full of everything that makes a western great -- horses, guns, good guys, bad guys and more horses. The story would make a good screenplay, harkening back to classic movies like Winchester '73 and Man From Laramie. In the characters of John Checker, Tyrel Bannon and Dan Mitchell, author Smith brings to life the hardship and kinship of life on a cattle drive. After reading this book, anyone who has ever dreamt of "riding the range," will long to saddle up and ride the Dark Trail to Dodge. I hope we don't have to wait long for more works from Cotton Smith.

I collect cookbooks. Many of them sit on the shelf, and are used very rarely. However, this cookbook is in a very small minority of books that get used over and over again. I just bought my second copy, as the sprial binding finally gave out on my first copy. The only other cookbooks that I use as often as this one are Joy of Cooking and Fannie Farmer.

I've had my Joy of Cooking since 1962 and it's well-used. I've been given Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook, Southern Living Cookbook, many others over the years and they're all good sources. But my copy of Cotton Country Collection purchased about 1980 has been my all-purpose standby ever since. It fell completely apart four years ago and I still kept it in a plastic shoe box so I could refer to it often. Now the pages are dogeared and ruffled and stained so I plan to purchase a new copy and give the old one a well-deserved rest. It is my one indespensable kitchen secret. I can't praise this cookbook enough.

I was first given a copy of "Cotton Country" when we moved to Monroe in 1977 from Chicago. Many recipes were new to us but I was excited about becoming a true 'southerner'. I have since tried many of the recipes and have enjoyed cooking as well as eating them. My cookbook has only a few of the original spirals left due to much useage. It is my favorite cookbook even though I have added many more books to my collection. We have moved several times since living in La., but I continue to reach for the 'Cotton Country Collection" and now that our daughter recently married, she received a copy. Best of the best!

It's hard to imagine Ralph's stories getting better, but he's done it again with this one! The story definitely keeps you turning the pages. Ralph's brought back some characters from previous stories and it feels like seeing old friends again although, some aren't so nice. The story is very well told and has the many twists and turns that Ralph throws in. You wonder how so many seemingly unrelated incidents and characters can all come together, but they do, and they do it nicely. I'd recommend this book to anyone who wants to sit back, forget about work and the everyday stress of life, and just ride the dust covered range for a few hours. Keep 'em coming, Ralph!

I read all of the 3 books he wrote and I enjoy them. My husband a western reader and I ask him I would like to read a western and he gave me book 1 of this series and I like it. I always like western movies now I found an arthor that I enjoy reading. He very good writer aand I hope he keeps up the good work.

As a writer myself, I bought Misery Express after seeing that Shadow of A Noose is a New York Best Seller, the first western best seller I have seen for quite a while. Reading Misery Express, I will not be surprised to see Cotton writing MANY! MANY! more best sellers. This book has too much going on to try and explain. Suffice it to say, if you do not ordinarily read the Western genre, try this one. You will be delighted! Terrific work, Mr. Cotton. Give us more!

This is one great novel of the west. Right from the start I wanted to ride with the Kerrys to keep their ranch. The writing is superb. A quick sample "Even the odor of burned cow flesh from the branding arrived like an old friend seeking to encourage him." If anyone knows that smell, or even understands that it's quite an odor, they'll realize just how much Ethan Kerry loves the ranch he's built, and what he'll do to keep it. Even if he is blind. Would make a fantastic movie!

I hope there is going to be a sequel. Has to be a sequel.

I've enjoyed all of Cotton Smith's novels (Dark Trail to Dodge, Brothers of the Gun and Behold a Red Horse). His style is straightforward and action-packed drawing in the reader and keeping him entertained. But it's all the melancholia beneath the surface that really hits home; the ... tormented and haunted characters where the past never quite lets go, and the drive to dig out a personal destiny.

When will this story be made into a movie? It's just a fun, exciting read. Fantastic characters. Moving storyline. Well-paced action. Will there be a sequel?

Ralph Cotton has gotten back to his writing roots! In the tradition of "While Angels Dance," Blood Rock is packed full of great dialogue. The interchange between the outlaws at times had me laughing out loud.

If you liked Ralph's earlier books, you will LOVE Blood Rock!

Blood Rock is another good western by Ralph Cotton. It is the story of how Ranger Sam Burrack got started. He is a buffalo hunter that knows nothing about law enforcement. Before the book is over he has learned so much and become a force of his own. Has a lot of action and you can feel and see the western country side through Cottons eyes. For a fast paced, fast moving book with lots ot action this will be hard to beat.

This book is soooo good. Ralph Cotton really captures real life events that would have happened in the Wild West times. I'm a western book fanatic and this book was soo good. You have to get it. If you want to know what life was like for a Arizona ranger, here's your chance.

I read a great many books, and some mysteries, but it is not often that I am sorry to see a book end because I have enjoyed the characters so much that I want to see more of them and to hear more of their exploits. Jude Peters has given us a fully realized professor/sleuth but has left much more to find out. Cotton Mather is at home in his university setting, but even more a resident of Memphis, a city with which Peters seems as familiar as Robert B. Parker is with Boston. Peters also knows his way around universities and the less savory aspects of society, as his detective/professor investigates the death of an Elvis impersonator, stepping on all sorts of toes, encountering people who give meaning to the terms "character" and "local color," all the while demonstrating a fine appreciation for beer, food, and things Southern. I particularly enjoyed the wit and sarcasm of Mather's exchanges with other characters, as well as his observations of university life and human nature. I look forward to encountering him again, as Parker's Spenser is getting along in years, and Jude Peters' Mather seems a fitting character to carry the torch.

A bright new talent is emerging from a list of new authors.Jude Peters' "Guilty Employers" kept us riveted from beginning to end. A "Who Dunnit" laced with humor, well developed interesting characters and intrigue. We hope this is just the first of many Cotton Mather mysteries to come.

This is one of the most intriguing mystery novels I've read in years! The beginning reminds me of a John Grisham novel, but the suspence of the twists and turns in the plot and the humor are more typical of a Spenser novel. I found myself laughing out loud in many places. Because of the occupation of the principal character, there are lots of fun allusions, again reminiscent of Robert Parker. I'm ready for the next Cotton Mather novel--soon I hope.

I really enjoyed this book it captured the feelings of the entire country and I think it expresses what the government and the armed forces really feel about this situation. I had trouble putting the book down, i read it to the wee hours of the morning and glad i did. I recomend this highly. i hope this book recieves the recognition it deserves. A satisifed and appreaciative reader. I hope their are more books to follow

I really enjoyed the easy flow of the writer but yet intense enough to hold your interest and now everything in the book is coming out in the news . I don't know if the writer had a crystal ball or what but it is remarkable how he predicted the situations before they occured. Intense and at the same time intriguing . I couldn't put it down.I am looking for other books by same writer.loved it.

It was an intense book to read a real page turner, I had trouble putting it down I wish we had more Major Slade books.He got right to the problem and went out and recruited the right people for the job and got it done. I was cheering him on all the way.

Chester B. Himes wrote a series of "Hard Boiled" detective novels set in Harlem during the the 1950's and 60's. His two main protagonists were "Coffin Ed" Johnson and "Grave Digger" Jones, a couple of black police detectives operating in the seedy underworld of Harlem and New York City. Himes himself had served time for armed robbery in Ohio. While in prison he first read the works of Dashiell Hammet("The Maltese Falcon","The Thin Man",etc.)and decided that he could write similar fiction set in Harlem's vibrant African-American culture. He moved to France after his prison release and then began to write (in French!) his own brand of mysteries set in the New York City section that had become world famous for it's culture, nightlife and intellectual renaissance. The first of these mysteries was "A Rage in Harlem"(first published in French as "For Love of Imabelle" in 1959). Coffin Ed and Grave Digger were only minor characters in this first novel, but by the time of the 5th novel "Cotton Comes to Harlem" they were the stars of the series.

In "Cotton..." a ex con named Deke O'Hara scams $87,000 from a group of families who want to go to Africa to start a new life free from segregation and prejudice. Before O'Hara can abscond with the money a group of white gunmen steal it in the middle of the "Back to Africa" rally O'Hara is hosting and then escape. All this takes place in the first few pages, and the action only steps up the pace from that point on. Cotton Ed and Grave Digger are assigned to the case, and their brand of brutal, violent police work may not be always legal, but they have their own code of honor, which demands that they do all in their power to see to it that the families get their money back, as in most of the cases it amounts to their life savings. Through a maze of deceit and treachery filled with white supremacists, voluptuous women, scam artists, underworld informants, and real to life street people the two cops thread their way with both violence and guile. I won't spoil the ending, but suffice it to say that Himes delivers.

The book was made into a movie in 1970 which played up the humorous aspects of the book. While there is much mordant and cynical humor in Himes' writing, the book is much more than that, and deserves a place in the "Hard Boiled Detective" Hall of Fame. If you like this one I would recommend Himes' other works, especially "The Real Cool Killers".

A definite 5 stars.

... The book doesn't concern Bible Flowers. It's about the efforts of two black detectives, "Grave Digger" Jones and "Coffin Ed" Johnson, to recover $87,000 in money stolen from a con-man/storefront preacher in 1960s Harlem. Along the way, Grave Digger and Coffin Ed encounter a few murders, a southern colonel, and a 50-pound bale of cotton.

Raymond Chandler wrote that detectives must walk the mean streets, but they must not themselves be mean. Well, Grave Digger and Coffin Ed walk the mean streets just fine, but the "not being mean" part gives them trouble; they doubt the feasibility of solving a case without, say, slapping around a few witnesses or firing a few shots into a crowd. Despite the detectives' unhesitating brutality, this novel compares well to the best of Raymond Chandler and Robert B. Parker. This is due not only to the spot-on dialogue and the stark, vivid character depictions, but also the detectives' uncompromising determination to bring justice to Harlem. The plot is better, i.e., less predictable, than any of Parker's, and Himes's depiction of 1960s Harlem is so bizarre, yet compelling, that it invites comparison to Carl Hiassen's Florida rather than Chandler's LA. Add to this Himes's unique, excruciatingly honest depiction of race relations in the 1960s, and you have one of the best detective novels I have read in years.

...

The dialogue, the action, the characters, it's Harlem world and it's all here! What else do you want?

This cookbook is great fun for couples who enjoy working together to produce something: delicious food, in this case. I wouldn't recommend it under the following circumstances:

For couples who are currently going through a bad patch, this cookbook will probably just make things worse: it requires a lot of cooperation and a sense of humor.

For couples who are competitive with each other, you might not like the results when you get out of sync with each other on the instructions because one of you was trying to do his/her part better or faster or with more seasoning. (Not that I'm speaking from experience!)

For couples without access to a well-equipped kitchen, you will be frustrated by the equipment and ingredients that you don't have. This book doesn't require anything really exotic, but it sure is a lot easier if you have lots of different types of pots and pans, a food processor, stove, oven, microwave, and plenty of timers.

Aside from those caveats, you really can't go wrong. The instructions are spelled out in detail, so that even couples without a lot of cooking experience can create complex, exciting meals together without running into the timing pitfalls that usually plague beginning cooks.

Enjoy -- and better clean up the dishes as you go along, because you'll probably be in too romantic a mood to wash dishes by the time you're done cooking, eating, and drinking wine!

Finally, a cookbook that lets us cook together! The recipes are great, the instructions are clearly described for two people, and the meals are delicious. Cooking has never been more fun. The pork roast is fabulous. We're looking forward to preparing the Ultimate Valentines Day dinner. We also loved the "Marinating the Chef" concept.

This is a great book for people who don't want to spend a bundle on a dinner date, but still want to have a special evening. The food is very tasty and the menus, including wine, are well balanced. Also, the instructions are easy enough for my kitchen-clueless boyfriend to follow. Most importantly, cooking these meals together created very low-stress, romantic evenings. Be sure to treat it like a "real" date (candles, flowers, and fun music) and you'll have a great time.

I have read six books by Ralph Cotton. All have been good. I think I like the series that starts with Montana Red better. This one gets a little out of the west with the trip to Chicago and a regular police force. Sullivan Hart and Twojack Roth are federal deputies hunting JT Priest and his coharts. They have killed Hart's father, who was also a deputy. They track him across the country to Chicago. They are helped by Quick Charlie Sims who is accused of robbing a bank, but it was robbed by Priest. Quick Charlie is a good character I hope he is used again. The last few pages are very good as Mabrey, another outlaw, in with Priest, is taken care of by Quick Charlie. Really like the westerns I read to be more set in the west. However, Cotton is very good and it makes for an interesting read.

A very good read!

The storyline was great and the characters are believeable. None of the John Wayne stuff, just real characters who get hurt, tired and hungry.

Quick Charlie Sims, while a con man, is a likeable fellow and I hope he shows up in future books.

Ralph Cotton has proven that, once again, he's the best!

This is not a typical western novel full of typical western characters. It is an original and well thought out piece of work, written by a gifted story teller. The excitement is electric and humoruos. If this is the first in a series, I can't wait for the next one.