Coming Up in 2011 #8: The Western Mysteries - The Case of the Deadly Desperados by Caroline Lawrence

When I was a kid I loved watching Westerns on TV. My favourite were, and still are, Sergio Leone's original Man With No Name 'trilogy' starring Clint Eastwood, and The Good, the Bad and The Ugly is one of my all time Top 5 favourite films. However, it is a genre that we sadly don't often see in children's books these days but that isall soon change as Caroline Lawrence, author of The Roman Mysteries books, has a new series starting in June. Caroline very kindly wrote a short piece about her new books for The Book Zone:


My new series, The Western Mysteries, is a fresh take on the Western genre. These books do not have a square-jawed Cowboy and his Faithful Steed. Good does not always triumph and a Bullet does not kill instantly - or sometimes at all. The first book in the series, The Case of the Deadly Desperados, finds 12-year-old P.K. “Pinky” Pinkerton arriving in Virginia City homeless, orphaned and hunted by a sadistic desperado. But armed with a Smith & Wesson seven-shooter and a knack for disguises, P.K. takes on Walt and his gang, plus dancing girls, gamblers & even Mark Twain. Told in a deadpan style with plenty of sagebrush humour, gory action and historical accuracy, I hope this new series will help revive the Western genre for kids.


The first book in this series is scheduled to be published by Orion on 2nd June. The 'wild west' is a time and place that should be a great setting for boy-friendly stories and I can't wait to find out what adventures Caroline has written for her young hero. If you want to find out more about Caroline and The Western Mysteries then why not pop over to http://www.westernmysteries.com/