Johnny Vermillion's theater troupe brings masterpieces to the Wild West. The four actors are versatile enough to wear many costumes and play many roles. A few props, a little makeup, a costume and-voilà-applause on the rugged frontier.
Johnny also arranges a special attraction for each town. While his actors bustle in and out of costumes, on and off the stage in many roles, one plays the villain in the bank. Then the actors take their curtain calls and railroad away.
Who? Us? Rob a bank? But, you saw all of us on stage. When could we have done that? A Pinkerton man becomes the troupe's severest critic: He notices the news reports of stage performances one day and bank robberies the next. He follows the troupe, packing his suspicions. Finally, he sets a clever trap.
Loren D. Estleman's The Adventures of Johnny Vermillion features one of the most entertaining rogues ever to turn a dishonest dollar. Any audience will love a troupe that can transform A Midsummer Night's Dream into grand larceny.
"Stylist extraordinaire Estleman shapes sentences like prose poems to the craft at hand, his details sharp as metal shavings, in a voice all his own."
Kirkus Reviews on Black Powder White Smoke
"What we have here is a true professional, a writer of a sort increasingly rare . . . a craftsman so given to his work as to spontaneously combust to genius."
Boston Globe on The Master Executioner
"Estleman's prose snaps like fresh linen Treasury bills."
Kirkus Reviews (starred review) on The Master Executioner
