Badlands

The third volume in Fackler's well-received Seth Strummar series is an uneven mixture of good guys, bad guys, bad kids, bad women and the gang that couldn't ride or shoot straight. It's 1883, and gunfighter and bank robber Seth has retired to a ranch in the Arizona Territory, determined to live down his bloody past. Despite his good intentions, however, he is still an outlaw saddlebum at heart, living off stolen money and letting down the friends and loved ones who need him most. When saloon tart Lila Keats rides into town out of Seth's past, it's clear that a revenge plot is afoot. Lila pulls a gang of inept hardcases into a brief blaze of action and gunfire, with Seth leading an equally inept posse in plodding pursuit. The whole story is dragged down by a raft of rotten, unsympathetic characters, Seth included. The sheriff is a crook, the women are whores with hearts of stone, the town's leading citizens are liars and thieves; even Seth's seven-year-old son turns out to be a killer. Joaquin, Seth's partner, is the only good guy, but even his light gets doused in this dismal tale. After Fackler's last, the superb Billy the Kid: The Legend of El Chivato (1995), this reads like an anemic horse opera in slow motion (Oct.)