I just finished reading When Cowboys Die, by Patrick Dearen. From the very first page, I knew that this was going to be one of those rare books that you would have to pry out of my hands to get me to stop reading; and if I didn’t have to eat, or sleep, or go to work, I wouldn’t have stopped. Based, in part, on an actual incident that occurred in Texas in the 1970s, When Cowboys Die is a short book with the gripping power of a Doberman.

            Charlie Lyles is the real deal; maybe the last real cowboy living in an age of pickup trucks and helicopters and radio communications. Born a hundred years too late, his only dream is to find a place, or a time, where he belongs; where he can saddle a horse and ride out without the imposition of the twentieth century dogging his back trail. So Charlie does just that. He steals a horse and rides out into the canyons and breaks of West Texas, where calendars and clocks didn’t matter, and where a man on a horse was as free as he would have been a hundred years earlier.

            But the twentieth century just won’t leave Charlie alone. The manhunt that ensues involves state and local police as well as Texas Rangers, and the man leading them is Charlie’s old friend and partner, L. D. Hankins. Will a man with a dream be a match for men with radios and helicopters and automatic weapons? Or maybe we should ask if they will be a match for him.

            When Cowboys Die is gritty and honest and sometimes dark, and at times, it put me in the unenviable position of being sympathetic to both Charlie and L. D. at the same time. It takes one hell of a writer to write like that.

            Patrick Dearen is a native Texan and former newspaperman. He has authored twenty-plus books, both fiction and non-fiction. He is an authority on the Pecos River, which figures prominently in many of his books. He has received numerous awards for his writing, both as a reporter and as a novelist and historian. You can check out his website at http://patrickdearen.com/, or his Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/Patrick.Dearen.author

The book is available at Amazon here “When Cowboys Die.”