Just finished reading The Six Gun Tarot by R S Belcher.  This is a very unusual book with a lot going on to keep you occupied.

We start in the desert with Jim and his horse Promise.  They’re lost and won’t last many more miles but Jim is determined to keep on going and get his horse and himself to safety.  They’re eventually picked up by a bit of a rescue mission lead by the Deputy Sheriff of Golgotha.

At this point I had no idea what to expect.  Jim’s story is quite intriguing and the beginning gently draws you in and is really quite engaging.  Then you reach the strange town of Golgotha and from thereon in anything seems, and actually is, possible.

Basically, there is a strange and evil presence held deep within the confines of Golgotha, an evil so old that if it is released it will undo creation.  And, this evil is stirring.  It’s drawing to it the weakminded.  It’s like a magnet for all things corrupt and yet it also attracts other strange powers who are subconsciously drawn to the magic that lurks beneath the hills.

On the face of it The Six Gun Tarot is a western, based in Nevada in the 1860s. The town’s sheriff is a mystery – he bears scars round his neck and seems impossible to kill.  His deputy, Mutt, is also an oddity with strange connections to the wild coyotes.  On top of this we have a town guardian and a Mayor who has a secret hidden in the tunnels beneath his house and if this wasn’t enough to keep you occupied, we have some unusual Chinese magic involving a jade eye, a secret assassin and member of an ancient order (trained by a pirate if you will) and a local shop, whose owner has a reanimated body kept in the rooms above, nice (and remind me not to shop there for me vittles!).  Lots of secrets in this little town and if you like plenty going on you can’t fail to be impressed.  The action starts up fairly quickly and once it does it pretty much keeps up a fairly consistent pace.

Now, all that being said I did come away with slightly mixed feelings and more of a lean toward ‘like’ than ‘love’ and I think the main reason for this is that I felt I didn’t get to spend enough time with the characters and find out more about them.  I also thought that some of the explanation in relation to the magical elements was left a little too vague, some of the dialogue could have been a bit sharper and I definitely had unanswered questions.  I thought we got a fairly good look into Jim’s past and it was interesting and well defined but I would have liked more of the same in relation to some of the other inhabitants.  However, and here’s the thing, I think the author has a reason for this – I could be wrong of course, but this book feels like the perfect set up for further stories set in Golgotha where more time would be spent with the main characters already introduced and to give time to build up their individual stories.  I actually hope that this is the case.  I think that if this is the first in a new series it will definitely be somewhere that I would like to revisit and see how the characters grow.  Not to mention I have quite a few queries – for example, what on earth is going on in the graveyard?  It won’t be the first time that I’ve started a series with slight niggles or doubts and I think this is perfectly reasonable if the author intends to take us back.

Anyway, part western part horror, sprinkling of sci fi and plain weird, dash of supernatural, mix together with a bit of theology and finish it off with a grand finale involving a zombie-type break out and you have a rough idea of what’s going on (and put like that it does seem a bit ambitious doesn’t it and perhaps the author should have gone a bit more slowly, maybe held back a few ideas but you certainly can’t say it’s dull).

So, will I be disappointed if this is the end of Golgotha?  Yes, I want to know more.  I want to see how the author develops this.  I definitely want to read more about Jim and see if we find any more out about his remaining family and I want to see how Maude and Mutt progress.  If this is a standalone novel I will be slightly more disappointed as I don’t feel it’s fully complete.  Lets wait and see then!

I received a copy of this from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.