I enjoy “Weird Westerns”. I see them as a mutant form of pulp cowboy stories. They are often uninhibited, rollicking reads that ignore modern fictional trends. Start the story and go, seems to be the motto. Ryan Williamson’s The Widow’s Son has been getting some press, so I thought I would try it out. Customer advisement here, this is a review of a big novel, and there are some small spoilers for events in the first quarter of the book. 

The Widow’s Son starts with its protagonist, Zarahemla Two-Crows, Special Agent of the Federal Occult Research Bureau, escorting a psychopathic Skin-Walker prisoner to justice. We are in the Arizona Territory in the late 1870s and the (very) big taciturn special agent has his hands full. When the arrival of a US Cavalry patrol triggers an ambush by Skin-Walkers intent on mass slaughter, Zarahemla is the only survivor. That he does survive is down to the intervention of Mrs. Anne Henry, the widow of the title. The “weird west” doesn’t get any weirder than this.

Now beholden to Mrs. Henry, Zarahemla reluctantly agrees to help her find and rescue her son, who has been stolen by demons. If that were not enough of a problem, the son was conceived under an enchantment by an Amerindian spirit who may or may not be good (or evil). It appears that demonic forces have plans for the life and soul of a small boy who lives in both the earthly and the spirit planes. Zarahemla and Anne start out on a journey that’s going to take them a long way from Arizona, through unearthly dangers and the very real possibility of losing their souls to demonic evil.

Never one to yield to exposition when a tempting action sequence beckons, Mr. Williamson sets off at a cracking pace. Soon, our two protagonists are on board a US Cavalry airship, with Zarahemla arrested for murder. The airship is our introduction to the Steampunk element of the story, which includes steam-powered mechs and other mechanical marvels. 

A lot happens very quickly and the action serves the story well. Rather than info-dump into the narrative, the author lets scenes and dialogue paint a picture of an America bedeviled by occult monsters. As the story progresses, we also find out more about Zarahemla and Anne. But this information is revealed to us very slowly and serves to intrigue us as to who these people actually are. Zarahemla is a puzzle inside an enigma. A big heavily-muscled man, he is not a white man, but it is impossible to determine what race he actually is. At one point, someone refers to him as a “mulatto” which he quite clearly is not. He could be any mix of races. He admits that even he doesn’t know, because his childhood is a mystery hidden from him by magic.  Anne is a farmer’s wife with a very troubled history. She had vowed to rescue her son, even at the cost of her own life. As the story progresses we discover her strange affinity for spiritual beings.

These two characters are a key part of what makes Widow’s Son such a fun read. Zarahemla is written as deliberately non-stereotypical and so we get surprises galore from him as adventures occur. Anne is a strong, resourceful woman, with skills that are vital to their survival. Yet there is none of the cringey “Black-Widow” super-heroic martial arts nonsense that plagues so many modern female heroes. Anne is brave, funny and fun.

This story sensibility extends to secondary characters. Some of them are very original and often change the story in surprising ways. Sometimes a character would appear who I thought was there for the long haul, only to get bumped off. One character who I thought was a plot placeholder had an entertaining evolution and was in at the climax. Great characters are one of the things that makes Mr. Williamson’s writing stand above that of a lot of other weird westerns.

By the midpoint, the story centres on a vast zombie infestation coming up from South America. The journey to find the Widow’s Son becomes even more hazardous and Zarahemla and Anne forge a rag-tag team of misfit heroes to continue their quest. Lots of action now and some real hardships for our heroes.

I think that my only criticism of the second half of the book is that a couple of the action sequences feel a bit rushed. Action is clearly Mr. Williamson’s métier but for me, one or two (admittedly out of many) sequences seemed to me to be a little disjointed and lost impact as a result. By his own admission, Ryan Williamson is a bit of a seat-of-the-pants writer. He might want to tone that down a little in his next book. It sometimes gets in the way of some excellent action sequences.  

That aside, this is a story that gets more inventive as it gets more intense. By the time we reach the climactic battle, Mr. Williamson has deployed Amerindian, Christian, Celtic and Mesoamerican mythologies. Oh, and a touch of Voodoo. It all gets gloriously colourful and supernaturally strange the closer we get to the end. Widow’s Son is a big read, which justified its big spectacular ending.

I liked Widow’s Son a lot. The pace, the action, the twisty story. But what really stood out for me were the engaging and original characters. At the end of novel Mr. Zarahemla Two-Crows remains mostly a mystery, and I look forward to his next adventure.