I’m a sucker for books that mash together genres. Whether it’s mystery with fantasy or horror with science fiction, I’m on board with whatever you got. However, when it’s a genre mixed with a Western, I’m a bit pickier. You see, Lonesome Dove ruined other Westerns for me. Between that and Cormac McCarthy’s Westerns, I have trouble enjoying Western mash-ups. It does happen (see Melinda West: Monster Gunslinger or The Alloy of Law). Yet often I find these mash-ups are fantasy or horror stories with Western set dressing. (That is not a complaint, just an observation.) When I read Red Rabbit by Alex Grecian, I found a Western story in a Western setting with supernatural elements to enhance the setting. I was reminded of Lonesome Dove and All the Pretty Horses but with ghosts, and I loved the experience.
Disclaimer: The publisher provided a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Any and all opinions that follow are mine alone.
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TL;DR
Red Rabbit by Alex Grecian is a Western novel mixed with supernatural horrors. It follows an odd group of individuals through a beautiful and brutal alternate Kansas. Highly recommended.
From the Publisher
“Impossible to put down.” —Kelly Link, author of Pulitzer Prize finalist Get In Trouble
A ragtag posse must hunt down a witch through a wild west beset by demons and ghosts—where death is always just around the bend—in this new supernatural horror by bestselling author Alex Grecian.
Sadie Grace is wanted for witchcraft, dead (or alive). And every hired gun in Kansas is out to collect the bounty on her head, including bona fide witch hunter Old Tom and his mysterious, mute ward, Rabbit.
On the road to Burden County, they’re joined by two vagabond cowboys with a strong sense of adventure – but no sense of purpose – and a recently widowed schoolteacher with nothing left to lose. As their posse grows, so too does the danger.
Racing along the drought-stricken plains in a stolen red stagecoach, they encounter monsters more wicked than witches lurking along the dusty trail. But the crew is determined to get that bounty, or die trying.
Written with the devilish cadence of Stephen Graham Jones and the pulse-pounding brutality of Nick Cutter, Red Rabbit is an epic adventure of luck and misfortune.
“Echoing True Grit, RED RABBIT is a riotous, Boschian, gun-slinging marvel.” —Laird Hunt, author of In the House in the Dark of the Woods
Review: Red Rabbit by Alex Grecian
Ned Hemingway and Moses Burke were playing cards in a bar when in walks a man who lays a child on a table. He claims a witch got his boy. When Moses, who picked up battlefield medicine in the U.S. Civil War, examines the child, he finds an unconscious girl with a dislocated shoulder. The man, Tom Goggins, continues to refer to the child as a boy, despite it being very clearly a girl. Oh, and Tom is also a witch hunter. He and his child companion, Rabbit, are off to collect the bounty on the witch of Burden County, Kansas. The witch, Sadie Grace, has been accused of many misdeeds, and the town needs help ridding itself of her. Or so the story goes. Ned and Moses decide to join Tom and Rabbit for a trip to Burden County. It’s more interesting than sitting around playing cards. When Old Tom tries a spell over a fresh grave, he’s confronted by Rose Nettles, who recently laid her husband in the ground. Rose joins the group because she believes the child needs a caretaker amongst the company of such men. And thus the group sets out on a journey to Burden County. Trailing after them is the ghost of Rose’s dead husband, Joe Mullins. On this journey, they’ll come across ghosts who haven’t moved on, a demon set on corrupting and tormenting as many humans as he can, and horror, lots of horror.
Red Rabbit by Alex Grecian is a third person story of the group’s journey to Burden County, Kansas in search of the witch, Sadie Grace. It’s paced like a western with mostly a smooth ride interspersed with a few canters and the occasional sprint. The story wanders and takes tangents in a way that increases the beautiful oddities of Grecian’s world. It’s a story I wish I could have lingered in, but I couldn’t stop turning the pages.
Wonderful Characters
In fiction, characters are the most important part of the story to me. Grecian has created some neat characters for the reader to follow. Rose, Tom, and Joe Mullins stand out. Ned and Moses fade into the background; I don’t remember much about them. Grecian gives us glimpses into his characters lives that are both important to the story but also deepen the character, even if it’s just a hired hand on a ranch. Red Rabbit’s characters don’t get the deepest character development; they get just the right amount. Readers don’t become intimates with the characters or even best friends, but we do get enough to know them. To be good friends. Grecian excels at giving the readers enough information that the characters are real, whole, and entertaining without bogging down their journey.
When reading stories that blend the Western with other genres, I find that rarely do the characters feel like Western characters. Often they feel like fantasy characters inside a Western setting. Grecian’s characters, however, feel like they could come straight out of an alternate Lonesome Dove. Red Rabbit is a Western with Horror and Fantasy added instead of a horror novel set in a Western setting. The difference may be subtle but it meant a lot to me. Red Rabbit had a frontier feeling throughout. Joe Mullins and Rose Nettles were farmers trying to pull a life from the hardpan of Kansas. Ned and Moses were veterans of the Civil War. Tom was, well, he was Tom. Read the novel, and you’ll understand. These are characters that we’d recognize from our reality who just have to deal with the supernatural.
Haunting Setting
I loved the setting. Grecian does a great job of creating an environment that fits the Western and Horror genre elements. The setting and scenery add as much to the overall mood of the story as do the action, ghosts, and demons. Grecian’s Kansas reminded me of Cormac McCarthy’s Western settings. The land is open, large, brutal, and, yet, impersonal. Kansas isn’t out to get the characters; it’s just brutal. It is a land that we’d find recognizable, just there’s supernatural entities running around causing havoc.
Near the beginning of their journey, the group decides to take a shortcut through a forest, and in the forest, they encounter a fence. To keep to the shortcut, they have to go through the fence. That scene is one that has stuck with me. It’s beautiful; it’s sad; it’s scary; it’s scary in an existential way; and yet it also sounds peaceful in a different sense. The next time I’m standing in the silence amongst trees, I’ll be thinking of that scene.
The Horrific West
Western stories are ripe settings for horror. The American West was a hopeful one in which people sought out a better life for themselves. That frontier time is looked upon as untamed and unknown (despite the natives who lived there and knew it better than we know it today). Hope mixed with the unknown is fertile ground for horror. After all hope drives readers through horror stories. Hope that the characters survive. Hope that redemption is possible. Grecian uses hope well in this story. His odd crew become a family for a time, and we readers hope they make it to the end; we hope to see justice served. Yet hope is often dashed upon the unknowable frontier, and Red Rabbit is no different.
Grecian doesn’t do anything ground-breaking with the horror aspects of his novel. For those looking for fresh or bizarre scares, you won’t find them here. However, I think he puts nice tweaks on what elements he does use. The story is well told, and the horror/supernatural elements were chosen to highlight the Western setting instead of the other way around.
Conclusion
Alex Grecian’s Red Rabbit is a brilliant and horrific Western. It’s a beautifully realized alternate Kansas filled with the supernatural and excellent characters. The titular Rabbit and her gang undertake a journey worth following. Highly recommended.
Red Rabbit by Alex Grecian is available from Tor Nightfire now.
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