#56: Beyond the Pass by Lee Leighton

A bounty hunter takes a job tracking a pair of outlaws holed up in a small town about to get snowed in for the winter, thinking he can reconnect with his father and perhaps connect with a fiery young woman he had met there once before; but when he rides in and finds his father married to the woman, it makes for a long winter in Lee Leighton's Beyond the Pass.

Making things even more complicated, the outlaws don't seem that bad and the townspeople have a lot of dark secrets.  As it happens, his new stepmother may be the most dangerous one of them all.

The western veers close to noir before the finale.

I had never heard of Lee Leighton, who was actually Wayne Overholser, until pretty recently, and was surprised how good Hanging at Pulpit Rock was.  This one was also a cut above, with interesting characters and an above-average plot.

I was surprised again by Leighton/Overholser and happen to have one or two more in this big lot of mixed westerns I picked up.

#45: Hanging at Pulpit Rock by Lee Leighton

 A greenhorn deputy is put in charge of a tough frontier town when the rugged sheriff goes on a three day fishing trip in Lee Leighton's Hanging at Pulpit Rock.

Leighton was actually Wayne Overholser, a well-regarded western writer whose books I see everywhere, though I had never knowingly dipped into one.  I actually started reading this for the odd cover, which features an angry man slipping a hangman's noose around another man who is smiling enigmatically.  There is a hanging, as per the title, but there isn't any smiling.

Leighton's plot is a cut above, with interesting characters and situations.  Almost right away a murder and alleged rape happens, and the greenhorn deputy proves out to be the fastest gun anyone has seen, tested by any number of owlhoots.  The crooked town leadership doesn't help as a rampaging lynch mob leads to a trial by fire for some of the more upstanding citizens.

I enjoyed this western quite a bit, and would look for more from Overholser/Leighton.  I got this as part of a big lot of western books I was more interested in from eBay but read this one first.  A good find for western fans.