Revenge In Crow City

Revenge in Crow City (1980) – Wayne D. Overholser
Chivers Press • ISBN: 0754081443 • Condition: Used
Dusty, disgruntled, and saddle-worn from Crappy Old Books

Welcome to Crow City—which is not, strictly speaking, a city, and contains more grudges than people.

Here, justice moves at the speed of a man on horseback with a bad attitude, and the local conflict resolution model is:

1. Glare.

2. Threaten.

3. See step 2, but louder.

4. Gunfire.

Revenge in Crow City is your classic Western boiled down to its pure, undiluted essence: someone did someone else wrong, and now we’re all going to spend 200-odd pages seeing how spectacularly that fails to end well for anyone.

No spreadsheets. No email. Just dust, regret, and people with unresolved issues buying more ammunition instead of therapy.

Condition: Used (like everyone’s soul in this book)

When Crappy Old Books says Used, we mean:

• The cover has travelled: armchairs, bedside tables, at least one bus seat, maybe a garden lounger on a day that looked sunny but really wasn’t

• The spine bears noble creases of the “somebody genuinely wanted to know who gets shot, and when” variety

• All pages present, attached, and fully readable—no missing shootouts, no vanishing confessions, no mysteriously absent showdown

• Corners a bit softened, edges gently scuffed, giving it that perfect “this book has already witnessed at least one imaginary bar fight” patina

No suspicious stains, no pages that look like they’ve been used to wedge up a table leg in a saloon, and no bullet holes. Just honest, experienced paperback.

What’s happening out in Crow City

Without spoiling anything (other than the general mood), expect:

• At least one wronged man with a score to settle and entirely too much time to brood about it

• A town trying to pretend it’s normal while being quietly rotted through with fear, secrets, and people staring very hard at one another over whiskey

• A supporting cast featuring: cowards, opportunists, one or two brave idiots, and the obligatory person who says, “Leave it alone,” far too late

• Horses, dust, guns, badly bottled emotions, and a landscape that doesn’t care who’s right but will absolutely watch what happens

This is Western storytelling the traditional way:

• Simple on the surface

• A mess underneath

• Consequences everywhere

No fancy twists, no techno-conspiracy, just people making very bad choices and then doubling down because pride, revenge, and sheer stubbornness.

Why a Used copy is thematically perfect

A shiny, flawless copy of Revenge in Crow City would feel about as authentic as a neon saloon sign. From Crappy Old Books, this Used edition:

• Already looks like it’s ridden a few metaphorical trails

• Liberates you from the cult of pristine—fold the corner, read it while eating crisps, drop it in your bag next to your keys and half a sandwich; it’ll live

• Arrives with that faint sense of having already overseen one bout of armchair justice for another reader

This is a working Western. It’s meant to be read, not mounted above the mantelpiece next to a replica revolver.

Ideal for readers who:

• Believe that if you put “Revenge” and “City” in the same title, something entertainingly regrettable is bound to happen

• Enjoy old-school Westerns where problems are solved with grim determination and poor decision-making

• Prefer their morality tales dust-covered and gunpowder-flavoured

• Like stories full of tension where you know there’s going to be a showdown—you just don’t know whose side you’ll be on when it happens

Perfect for:

• Rainy afternoons that need a little more gun smoke

• Evenings when you want a story that moves like a man with a mission and no backup plan

• Anyone who secretly suspects they’d last about five minutes in an actual frontier town, but enjoys visiting from the safety of a chair

Recommended reading conditions

Best enjoyed:

• With a mug of something hot, or a glass of something that would definitely be sold in an unlabelled bottle in Crow City

• On a seat that doesn’t squeak every time you tense up (which will be often)

• In a mood somewhere between “mildly fed up” and “ready to see some fictional people reap what they’ve sown”

Side effects may include:

• A lingering desire to call modern disagreements “feuds,” even when they are clearly about emails

• Brief but intense respect for anyone who voluntarily lived without indoor plumbing

• A renewed appreciation for the concept of moving to literally any other town before things escalate

The facts, ma’am

• Title: Revenge in Crow City

• Author: Wayne D. Overholser

• Publisher: Chivers Press (1980)

• ISBN: 0754081443

• Condition: Used – previously read, mildly weathered, completely intact, full of consequences

Revenge in Crow City: for when you want a straight-shooting Western about grudges, gunplay, and the universal human inability to just let things go. Supplied in proudly Used condition by Crappy Old Books, purveyors of paperbacks that arrive a little worn and a lot trigger-happy.

Keep browsing: See more Westerns books Other books by Wayne D Overholser