Clifton Adams’s The Last Days of Wolf Garnett, published in 1970, is a fine Western.  It’s mostly well written, though Adams does incorrectly use “disinterested” (which means “impartial”, not “uninterested”), and it eschews becoming formulaic.  Up to a point I like the Western formulas, but non-formulas are even better so long as the book is sane and entertaining.

Here, the driven Frank Gault does not believe the barbarous man who murdered Gault’s wife is dead, even though he is supposed to be buried in New Boston’s cemetery.  Gault intends to avenge himself on the brute, Wolf Garnett by name, by and by encountering a terrible and dangerous conspiracy.  It’s a mystery story as well as an action novel.  Some startling material is here, in fact, in this a gritty portrait of obsession and the worst possible corruption.