Ralph Compton The Ghost of Apache Creek

Written by Ralph Compton and Joseph A. West

Narrated by James Jenner

The only folk left behind in Apache Creek are ghosts, including Marshall Sam Pace. Three years of solitude have turned Sam into a phantom, but when a woman on the run stumbles into town, the former lawman must protect her and make use of gunslinger skills long out of practice...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
• Release date: Apr 11, 2014
• ISBN: 9781490601243

Ralph Compton

Ralph Compton stood six-foot-eight without his boots. His first novel in the Trail Drive series, The Goodnight Trail, was a finalist for the Western Writers of America Medicine Pipe Bearer Award for best debut novel. He was also the author of the Sundown Rider series and the Border Empire series. A native of St. Clair County, Alabama, Compton worked as a musician, a radio announcer, a songwriter, and a newspaper columnist before turning to writing westerns. He died in Nashville, Tennessee in 1998.

Reviews for Ralph Compton The Ghost of Apache Creek

[bezoar44 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Some books are described as guilty pleasures; this one is a guilty misery. The main protagonist is a sheriff who has lost his wife and an entire town to cholera three years before the story begins and now he haunts the ghost town. He swings in and out of madness randomly. Two fugitives show up: a young woman fleeing a vicious polygamist, and an old gunman running from four killers who may or may not be literally from hell. Much cruelty and violence ensues. The writing is both purple and vulgar, bad Victorian prose dyed with 20th century nihilism. The characters behave inexplicably, returning to dangerous places when they have already escaped, and failing to shoot their enemies when they have the chance. The story isn't resolved by the actions of the characters, but by cholera and a band of Apache Indians, both presented as inhuman monsters. It's not clear what kind of book the author thought he was writing, but this is just terrible.