I enjoyed the previous Charles G. West western I’d read (Shoot-out at Broken Bow) immensely. It was the most entertaining pulp western I’ve yet read and I was looking forward to trying more from the author.

Luke’s Gold seemed right up my alley. Young cowhand Cade Hunter befriends an older cowboy, Luke who tells him of a stash of stolen Union gold. They go to retrieve it only to be bushwhacked by a scoundrel from Luke’s past. Cade survives the attack and sets off down the path of vengeance.

Wow! I pictured a grim tale of murderous justice in the Old West, set to Ennio Morricone’s “The Ecstasy of Gold”.

Luke’s Gold is not that. Oh, the story is there all right. But it is thrown off by over reliance on coincidence and a meandering, episodic pace. Cade doesn’t meet Luke until a third of the way through the book. The ambush takes place somewhere in the middle. At that point, I was thinking “Okay, NOW things are gonna get cookin’!”

But I was wrong. Side trips are made to introduce some mountain folk, a father and sons leading a herd of horses and various other encounters. Each part of the story was interesting enough, but it never felt like a cohesive whole.

The story is spiced-up with various western action scenes and Mr. West writes a good action scene. But even they felt coincidental. Long simmering tensions just happen to come to a head when Cade is around. Even the finale seems silly and relies on unbelievable happenstance.

Luke’s Gold is a slim book at 230 pages, but it still felt like it should have been tightened up and refined. The basis of the story is a good one. But the tale gets lost in the telling. ( )