Hewey Calloway is back to entertain his loyal fan club as he wanders from his planned ride, again. Seems trouble follows Hewey like a dog follows a steak. He's always got the best intentions, but they somehow never work the way he thinks they should. 1904 Texas isn't any kinder to the aging cowboy than any of the other places Hewey tried to call home.
Hewey Calloway is moving slowly as he travels towards Durango, Colorado. The plan is to visit a spell then travel north to see what's there. When Hewey stops to help a sick young man, he ends up with smallpox. Just as he thinks he's well enough to travel on, sure enough, trouble comes knocking on the door in the form of a Pinkerton looking for Hewey's new friend. As always, Hewey will work with friends and an old lawman friend to make life miserable for the Pinkerton until it suddenly dawns that this guy might not be what he says he is.

Elmer Kelton was one of the most awarded authors of westerns, both fiction and nonfiction. Most of his books were set in Texas and followed the state's growth into a symbol of cowboys everywhere. Hewey Calloway first appeared in THE GOOD OLD BOYS in 1982. Elmer Kelton died while writing The Unlikely Lawman and The Familiar Stranger. His son Steve, a nonfiction writer, would finish The Unlikely Lawman, released in 2022 and start working on The Familiar Stranger, only to die before he finished. John Bradshaw would finish the book, releasing it in 2024. So Hewey has travelled a long road, not just in Texas, but to publication. Elmer Kelton's books are already well known as some of the best in the west, if you've not read them, you have a long list and some very curious characters to catch up on. 5 stars.

A nice little number that had the feeling of a Zane Grey or Louis La’mour old timers writing about the west. As you follow him heading north and the perils that follow him and his defending of a possible outlaw. Well done and an interesting read. Thanks to Tor and Netgalley for the arc.

STEVE KELTON and JOHN BRADSHAW
Elmer Kelton’s The Familiar Stranger: A Hewey Calloway Adventure
Forge Books/Tor Publishing Group
Hardcover, 192 pages, $28.99
us.macmillan.com/torpublishinggroup/

Steve Kelton began the continuing story his father, Elmer Kelton, created featuring Hewey Calloway as the good ole boy character every reader loved, and it made sense for Steve to carry on the tradition. Sadly, he passed away before the novel finished, but John Bradshaw has brought the story to a rousing end.

Hewey, having delivered a herd of horses up toward Durango, Colorado, should’ve been on his way home to west Texas. Instead, he took a notion to head north, just to see the country. This brings him into contact with a young man suffering from smallpox, whom he helps. Catching the disease himself, the young man then saves his life. When a Pinkerton detective and a banker arrive on the scene saying Bob is a bank robber, things don’t add up to Hewey. You can bet dicey situations follow.

The dialogue is perfect, the action riveting, the story as a whole completely satisfying. This is one you won’t want to miss.
-Carol Crigger