Return to Silver Creek by Chuck Tyrell, a Review

Chuck Tyrell is a great western writer. He knows the country, and he lets the reader see the vistas, smell the wood smoke, hear the creak of leather, and feel the grit of sand in the beans. He tells stories of hard people in a hard land, and he lets you feel the bite of the wind as the world slides into winter with only a couple layers’ protection against the cold.

I live in and love the Pacific Northwest, but dang, his book Return to Silver Creek made me homesick for the high desert.

Return to Silver Creek is the story of Garet Havelock and his new bride, Laura, and the aftermath of an attack on her at their cabin on their homestead. It’s also the story of the eternal conflict in the west between cattlemen and sheepmen, between old settlers and new, and between those who have water and those who want it.

Chuck Tyrell turns a nice phrase, too. Listen as he tells about Laura’s state of mind as she takes refuge with neighbors at their hacienda,

Laura dreaded ever having to leave her room at the Pilar hacienda. The unyielding walls, the dim interior, and the solid oak bar across the door made her feel safe, or as safe as any violated woman could ever feel.


Her ears had become as sensitive as a fox’s. She heard murmuring voices from distant parts of the sprawling hacienda, the click of boots on the stone floors, the brush of clothing against the walls. She thought she could hear spiders spinning webs in the rafters at night.

Garet Havelock sets out to find out who did this to his wife. It takes him months to do so, and in the meanwhile he has several other near-death adventures and rights a few wrongs along the way. He’s not a man of steel. He has an old war wound that necessitates him wearing an iron brace on his knee—and mounting a horse on the off side. That is a bit of a metaphor for Garet Havelock. He has his own way of doing things, but he gets ‘em done.

If you like a good adventure. If you like westerns. If you like strong, flawed heroes. If you like writing where the setting is like another character, then you’ll like Chuck Tyrell’s Return to Silver Creek. It is available in Kindle edition at Amazon . At $3.99, it's a bargain.

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