Western Paperback: DEADMAN'S TRAIL by Nate Morgan.

 Western Paperback, DEAD MAN'S TRAIL by Nate Morgan (Victor Gischler), 2022, 9780786049417.

Gischler won a Spur Award for this novel of the follow-up. I do not recall which.

Carson Stone and Colby Tate are travelling bounty hunters who end up in Idaho. After tracking, finding, and gunfighting their quarry they bring the corpses into town to claim the bounty. Carson and Colby have been hanging around the Boise area. Carson is in a relationship of sorts with a prostitute. Both are asked to by the Sheriff to look into a mysterious death outside of town. The death is one of a string of events the lawman is looking into.

Things happen. They is a long con being run against local Rich Guy to trick him into buying land for a nonexistent rail line. When land owners don't want to sell, Rich Guy forces a sale or kills the owners. 

Local U.S. Cavalry unit is hunting renegade natives. A local miscreant acts as a informant. Carson goes ga-ga for local farm woman. Carson has the sexy-sex with his sorta girlfriend. Horses are ridden. Bad guys are shot. Carson and Colby run against Murderous Bad Lady who they've previously dealt with.

Gischler gives plenty of plot and adds in all the Western elements. The main plot of the Rich Guy making land grabs also has Army v. Indians, small town farming, dying mining towns looking to survive, a crooked cop, romantic triangle indecision, small town politics, conmen being super weasels. 

This one was not quite my speed. To be fair, I was also reading this during a busy summer and visits to a dying relative. 

Other book in the series is SHORT ROPE FOR A TALL MAN which is also available from the library. SHORT ROPE's two copies have 19 circs since October of last year. That is pretty decent.

Four copies of DEAD have 35 circs since April, 2023.

Gischler's RUMOR OF KINGS has two circs since July, 2022. Well... some fantasy fic just doesn't circ here.