"The South had the spunk by God, but not the wherewithal to beat the damn northern industrialists…not one God damn genntleman in the lot."
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Final Battle by Duncan L. Dieterly Trafford Publishing
book review by Russell Roberts
The Wild West existed in the United States for a relatively brief period in the later part of the 19th century, but that hasn't stopped it from being the subject of countless books, movies, and television/radio shows. One of the latest efforts is Dieterly's novel Final Battle.
The story takes place in 1895 in Wyoming. A small group of Native Americans has bolted from a reservation and embarked on a killing spree. The hero of the story is a former expert sharpshooter in the Confederate Army during the Civil War three decades earlier. He is tired of killing and wants only to be left alone, but finds he must reluctantly defend the tiny town that's right in the path of the marauding escapees.
Dieterly is an enthusiastic storyteller, and nimbly maneuvers a large cast of characters. The book taps into the main appeal of the western novel: a simpler time and place, stoic individualism, and the ability to melt into new surroundings after an unfortunate earlier period in life. His main character is the classic Western hero–the taciturn man with a checkered past who rises to heroic heights. The title carries a dual meaning, referring both to the main character and the Native Americans.
The book cries out for an editor to fix grammatical mistakes–misplaced modifiers, punctuation errors, and incomplete senttences. Dieterly also has an unfortunate habit of dropping in dialect and/or slang that doesn't add authenticity but rather detracts from the narrative.