The Adventures of Johnny Vermillion

Johnny Vermillion, handsome owner and featured thespian for the Prairie Rose Repertory Company, travels the West in the 1870s, entertaining folks in small towns like Purgatory, Spunk, and Lockjaw, and robbing their banks as he tries to make crime pay. Jauntily written and engagingly read by Jonathan Davis, the story presents colorful characters who are a troupe of good natured rogues. Davis quickly draws listeners in as co-conspirators. Davis differentiates the many male characters easily and finds unique female voices. The story is set "in a West that should have been but never quite was," and listeners will be cheering for the heroes to escape the villains and ride off into the sunset. S.C.A. (c) AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine

April 17, 2006
Every one of Estleman's more than 50 crime novels and westerns (Port Hazard
, etc.) offers suspense, action, humor and plot twist, with the westerns all refreshingly devoid of formula horse opera antics. This one, set in 1873, is even funnier than most. Led by a handsome and charmingly slick con artist, Johnny Vermillion, the Prairie Rose Repertory Company performs Shakespeare onstage, and robs banks offstage. They are masters of disguise and role-playing and are more tricksters than anything else, but they've unwittingly cut in on the turf of Black Jack Brixton's Ace-in-the-Hole Gang, a murderous bunch who vow to wipe out their criminal competition. A resourceful Pinkerton detective gets on the trail of both outfits. Of course, four-time Spur Award–winner Estleman ensures that the actors, the outlaws and the detective will converge at the same location, in a final showdown filled with laughs and gunsmoke.