Hunter's Trap

When first published in hard cover, C. W. Smith's Hunter's Trap was praised by Kirkus Reviews as a "Beautifully bitter Depression-era revenge melodrama in which good guys lose, good women die, and virtue's reward is unreasonable tragedy." The novel, set in El Paso in 1930, follows on Smith's highly praised Buffalo Nickel both as a sequel and a stand-alone noir-ish thriller in the mode of James M. Cain and Jim Thompson. Believing that his late wife was collateral damage in a greedy plot to murder an oil-rich Kiowa, Wilbur Smythe arrives in town under an alias of Will Hunter to track down the banker responsible for her death and sets about to avenge it by kidnapping and torturing someone dear to the story's arch-villain. Intricately plotted and told with a spare but lyrical style that far transcends that of pulp formula fiction, the novel "gradually unfolds against the divergent cultures of Oklahoma and Texas oil country, the Mexican border town of Juarez and Hollywood during the Roaring Twenties. Shadowy images of good and evil, undercurrents of bigotry, greed and betrayal emerge from the loosely linked vignettes that make up the narrative." The plot "moves inexorably to a stunning irony on the final page." (Publisher's Weekly) In this new epub edition "Smith's novel offers an evocative exploration of the values and character of a time, a place, and a man. . . . Here's hoping that many readers come to know this skillfully wrought tale. . . ." (Booklist)