Dark Frontier

I would like to say thank you to the publisher and to NetGalley for giving me an opportunity to read the book before most people. Although the author was new to me, I absolutely loved reading this story and will be following Matthew’s work in the future.

Plot
London, 1890. Lieutenant Gabriel Stokes accepts the invitation from his old army friend to visit him in Oregon. Stokes, tortured by his gruesome experiences of war in Afghanistan and work in the Metropolitan police, journeys across the Atlantic. He hopes to leave his broken career and broken marriage behind, to forget the horrors of the Afghan battlefield and the squalor of London’s East End. Instead of finding peace in the beautiful exotic land, he arrives in a world of violence and corruption where the law has no power. Stokes is drawn into a murder investigation and forced to join the fight for the land between the cattlemen and sheepherders.

Language
The book is very well written; the simple and easy-to-read language gives enough details to make you fall in love with Oregon’s beauty and the characters. While reading, I was so engrossed by the story that even TV near me couldn’t distract me from the book. The characters are realistic and relatable; Lieutenant Stokes isn’t a perfect Superman, but an ordinary man rich in virtues yet wrestling with vices. I’ve become emotionally attached to the characters. Even though I finished the book a few days ago, I still struggle with a book hangover. I do hope Matthew will make this the first instalment in the series.

Historical background
The book is very well-researched. I loved the attention to detail, which made the setting palpable and transported the reader directly into the heart of 1890s Oregon. The author’s extensive work and research become evident in the notes at the end of the book. Here, Matthew talks about the extensive groundwork of historical events and real-life figures he used for his fictional story. Those notes prompted me to seek out further reading and deepen my understanding of the era.

Who is going to enjoy the book?
Anyone who likes well-written, fast-paced, and well-researched historical fiction will love this no-doubt future bestseller.


Conclusion
The author’s fusion of fact and fiction not only entertains but educates, offering readers an immersive experience that lingers long after the last page is turned. While I’m struggling with my book hangover, I will go check out all the other books written by this author.

I enjoyed Mathew Harffy's previous novels in the Bernicia Chronicles set in the dark ages.
I actually enjoyed this more and I can't wait for the next installment.
It read in the style of the other great western novels I have read by Larry McMurtry such as Lonesome Dove Comanche Moon and Dead mans Walk.
The novel make you picture the 'West' at a time when justice was only found behind a six gun, scenery, lawlessness, raw beauty and all
This story follows Gabriel Stokes an ex hussar and London policeman who finds himself involved in a ranch war when he visits his friend John a Sheep rancher in Oregon.

"Dark Frontier' was an incredibly well composed, page-turning, story of the untamed and unpredictable American West. Hard to believe Harffy didn’t grow up or spend considerable time in Oregon with the way his prose and descriptions of the land capture the beauty and calm of the region.

Quick chapters leave the reader wanting to read “just one more,” in order to find out what the primary characters might find, stumble upon or be attacked by over the next hill. I thought the pace of the novel was exceptional in that the story starts abruptly, grabbing attention. Harffy then, allows space for the bond/dichotomy between Stokes and White to develop naturally along their journey to The JT. As the story progresses, we are then tugged back and forth between quiet moments of tranquility, love, humor and excitable moments of evil, greed and good ole fashioned Wild West gunslinging.

I truly enjoyed the juxtapositions of Stokes and White both dealing with mental health and addiction in their respective ways, but being forced by proximity and circumstance to address the issue on more than one occasion.

Great characters (unbelievably stoic and heroic female characters), great storyline, great themes, beautiful descriptions and carefully selected bits of history during the particular era make for an incredibly tasteful read. Well done.

I must thank the Aria & Aries Team, along with NetGalley for the ARC. I have and will continue to spread the word about this one. Damn good book.

Another brilliant book by Mr Harffy a bit different from his usual novels. This one is set in America and follows the exploits of an ex policeman from England. Let's hope there are more in this series

Matthew Harffy writes an absolute love letter to the American Western with all the charm of a newly unearthed Louis L'Amour classic. 

There’s even a bit of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in there to boot!

Dark Frontier is as much of a mystery novel and even a crime procedural as it is a Western. As smart as I like to think I am, I was totally surprised by the end, even though there had been clues all along.

Gabriel Stokes is a veteran of the Anglo-Afghan War and the crime-ridden streets of London, where he served as a detective. He has seen some things, man…horrible things, filling him with darkness and destroying his marriage with drugs and drink. When an invitation comes from an old army friend, Stokes thinks the wide-open skies of the American West will excise his demons. He soon finds out there’s plenty of darkness in the land of the setting sun.

Dark Frontiers has all the familiar elements you’d expect of a classic Western: stoic heroes, a beleaguered widow, the old whiskey-sodden gunslinger, and the powerful cattle baron who uses money and might to lord over a lawless land.

But Dark Frontier takes these beloved familiar pillars of our Saturday matinees and freshens them with unexpected twists and a new perspective. We see the familiar Old West through the eyes of an Englishman. Stokes is certainly a stranger in a strange land, but the dichotomy runs deeper than surfacy cultural differences. 

Stokes brings the insistence of an ordered world in which justice and the rule of law prevail. His partner, Jeb White, is a utilitarian who’d rather deal out a reckoning from behind his smoking Remingtons. But as they point out their differences to each other, they’ll find they are more alike than different. They are merely the two sides of every man: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the gentleman and the savage, civilized man and the beast within.

I love fish-out-of-water stories. It’s what I like about Bernard Cornwell’s Sharpe Series, in which a low-born soldier becomes an officer, or Cornwell’s Saxon series (The Last Kingdom), where an English child is raised by Danes and then has to reconcile these warring cultures within him. 

So I was fascinated when I heard that Cornwell’s fellow and rival sword-and-shield author, Matthew Harffy, was writing an American Western set in the late 19th century.  

Harffy is well known for his Bernicia Chronicles, A Time For Swords series, and The Wolf of Wessex novel. These are well-loved classics in the British Dark Ages subgenre of historical fiction. So I was stunned when Harffy admitted on his Rock, Paper, Swords Podcast to fellow author cohost, Steven A. McKay, that he is a life-long fan of the American Western. 

I mean, why not? I grew up in Detroit, making wooden swords and pretending to be a knight in shining armor. I can see my British cousins wearing cowboy hats and slinging capshooters at each other. So, I was delighted to see Harffy take on this labor of love. 

Folks, I’m gonna tell you right now, you can feel that love in every word he writes. You’ll share that boyish wonder in every sentence you read. Harffy is a masterful writer. He would shine in any genre. Here, he paints such visual and lyrical landscapes, flesh and blood characters, and intense action scenes. Do yourself a favor: saddle up and ride off into the Dark Frontier!

This is a ‘just one more’ book. No more chapter, one more chapter until it’s the middle of the night and I still couldn’t put it down. Loved it.

It’s been a long time since I read a Western, and this book has reminded me how good they can be.

Englishman Gabriel Stokes, and ex Royal Hussar and Met Policeman, goes to America to visit an old military friend. He arrives to find his friend dead and the West wilder than he can possibly imagine. His friend’s family are under threat from a cattle baron who wants their land, and what law there is, has been bought and paid for by the bad guy.

This is quite a familiar plot and could have been a lazy old school black hat v white hat western, but author Matthew Harffy gives this far more depth than one might except. 1890s Oregon is presented as a bleak, and isolated time, the town of Huntington feels like it is a long way from anywhere and this enables a degree of lawlessness. Stokes is presented as a warrior and good guy, but very much out of his depth in a place that does not value honour and law, so his growth into his new reality is realistic and interesting.
This was great fun and I hope the series will continue.

A new author for me and to read a 'Western' is completely different Full of 'baddies' but with the 'goodies' winning through - though with some losses - made for an entertaining read and the ending left us surely expecting )and hoping?) for more to come.
My thanks to NetGalley and Head of Zeus for this eARC in exchange for an unbiased and honest review.