The Winter Family

The Winter Family
Clifford Jackman
Book received by publisher
in exchange for unbiased review














Amazon Blurb -

 Spanning the better part of three decades, The Winter Family traverses America's harsh, untamed terrain, both serving and opposing the fierce advance of civilization. Among its twisted specimens, the Winter Family includes the psychopathic killer Quentin Ross, the mean and moronic Empire brothers, the impassive ex-slave Fred Johnson, and the dangerous child prodigy Lukas Shakespeare But at the malevolent center of this ultraviolent storm is their cold, hardened leader, Augustus Winter—a man with an almost pathological resistance to the rules of society and a preternatural gift for butchery. 
     From their service as political thugs in a brutal Chicago election to their work as bounty hunters in the deserts of Arizona, there's a hypnotic logic to Winter's grim borderland morality that plays out, time and again, in ruthless carnage.
     With its haunting, hard-edged style, The Winter Family is a feverishly paced meditation on human nature and the dark contradictions of progress.
*****

I was quite surprised that I enjoyed this book. In a million years I never would have picked it up at the book store nor library.Westerns are not my thing, but this one grabbed me.Graphic and blunt in its violence and mayhem, I found myself riveted to this crazy psychotic band of brothers as they travel from the south heading out west then back to Oklahoma.

Quentin Ross is one crazy son of a gun, a liar in the truest sense of the word, smart as a whip, almost poet like when he speaks at times yet a stone cold killer. A Union soldier, he's leading his men in Georgia as they tackle the end tasks of the Civil War, lying to his superiors at every turn. Here is where he connects with the Empire brothers, Jan Muller, freed slave Fred Johnson, Indian Bill Bread and Augustus Winter, the young and angry boy man who with his haunting amber colored eyes brings people to their knees. 

Winter becomes the leader of this family of killing misfits, takes this crew on a ride of murderous destruction. No one is spared and Winter is ruthless. Hired as mercenary type thugs, one has to wonder what would possess someone to even entertain doing any kind of business with this group. Those who do find out just what a mistake they have made, for there is no controlling Augustus, and there is nothing any of these men will stop at to protect themselves and each other.

What a ride this was, I found the twisted wickedness fascinating. Jackman writes with vibrant detail so that you feel you're right in the middle of the whole situation. If westerns coupled with stone cold killers are your thing, pick this book up!

3 1/2 Cannolis