Have Gun, Will Play by Camille LaGuire

Not the best book of my reading year.

It’s a western. Two young (very young) gunslingers, Mick and Casey, are hired to keep a rather precocious little girl, Laurie, and her aunt safe, as her Daddy is an unpopular bigwig in town. Needless to say, the job doesn’t go too well and there’s a lot of shooting, dead guys, deceit, betrayal and sore heads. Moreover, there’s something very unusual about a certain box of toys that belongs to Laurie, that seems to cause quite a lot of interest.

The whole thing is confusing and a mess. The characters are like cardboard cut-outs: the story is so ‘told’ (not one bit of ‘show’), I got no emotion from any of them and couldn't, therefore, afford them any in return. The story was poorly written: it lacked maturity (or experience), there were a number of typos and missing words, and the author seems to have no grasp on how to use the correct tenses.

This was unputdownable for all the wrong reasons: I couldn’t wait to finish it and get on to a good book.  The only commendation I can give is that the author sat down and had a jolly good try.