In this adventurous retelling of Frankenstein in the Wild West, a resourceful woman struggles with the man she loved before she made him into a monster. "With The Unkillable Frank Lightning, Rountree solidifies himself as not only one of the best writers working today, but makes the case for being the best Western writer of our present century."
--C. S. Humble, author of That Light Sublime trilogy Catherine Coldbridge is a complicated woman: a doctor, an occultist, and briefly, a widow. In 1879, her husband, Private Frank Humble, was killed in a Sioux attack. Consumed by grief, Catherine used her formidable skills to resurrect her husband. But after the reanimation, Frank lost his soul, becoming a vicious undead monster. Unable to face her failure or its murderous consequences, Catherine fled to grieve her failure. Twenty-five years later, Catherine has decided she must make things right. She travels to Texas with a pair of hired killers ready to destroy Frank. But Frank is no longer a monster; he is once again the kind man she knew. He has remade himself as the Unkillable Frank Lightning, traveling with the Wild West Show, and even taking on a mysterious young ward. Now Catherine must face a series of moral dilemmas that cannot be resolved without considerable bloodshed. With his signature lean, clean prose that reads like Raymond Chandler, Josh Rountree (The Legend of Charlie Fish) has penned a Frankenstein-inspired tale unlike any other. With equal parts Cormac McCarthy and Stephen Graham Jones, Rountree coalesces myth and legend into a dramatic tale of love, death, and its terrible aftermath.
--C. S. Humble, author of That Light Sublime trilogy Catherine Coldbridge is a complicated woman: a doctor, an occultist, and briefly, a widow. In 1879, her husband, Private Frank Humble, was killed in a Sioux attack. Consumed by grief, Catherine used her formidable skills to resurrect her husband. But after the reanimation, Frank lost his soul, becoming a vicious undead monster. Unable to face her failure or its murderous consequences, Catherine fled to grieve her failure. Twenty-five years later, Catherine has decided she must make things right. She travels to Texas with a pair of hired killers ready to destroy Frank. But Frank is no longer a monster; he is once again the kind man she knew. He has remade himself as the Unkillable Frank Lightning, traveling with the Wild West Show, and even taking on a mysterious young ward. Now Catherine must face a series of moral dilemmas that cannot be resolved without considerable bloodshed. With his signature lean, clean prose that reads like Raymond Chandler, Josh Rountree (The Legend of Charlie Fish) has penned a Frankenstein-inspired tale unlike any other. With equal parts Cormac McCarthy and Stephen Graham Jones, Rountree coalesces myth and legend into a dramatic tale of love, death, and its terrible aftermath.
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