"Melinda West: Monster Gunslinger" Book Review

K.C. Grifant should be no stranger to those who enjoy short-form horror. Melinda West: Monster Gunslinger is her first novel, but should be far from the last. Her talents are well suited to the Weird West, the sadly under-appreciated genre that mingles horror and fantasy with western genre tropes.

Melinda West is a capable gunslinger and sharpshooter with a past entwined with monsters. In a land where the presence of monsters is an accepted reality, Melinda is an exterminator. Flying bugs, oversized scorpions and more are just common paydays for her and her partner Lance across the desolate landscapes of the West.

The story lives on Grifant’s prose and characters, with West a complex, enjoyable figure with a tragic past and capabilities that make for stirring action scenes and quiet character moments. The story begins with West already a seasoned fighter, with a backstory woven in to explain a great deal about her and Lance.

And when she accidentally unleashes a demon upon the world, West is forced to reckon with her own errors and save the frontier from destruction. Grifant is powerfully imaginative and fills the pages of this novel with action and enjoyable monsters. Terrific action scenes ensue as a result and the action ramps up to the end.

K.C. Grifant makes sure we center on the characters and care about them. Melinda is a fantastic heroine: brave, capable, loyal, and caring. Dealing with an apocalypse she unleashed, with a frightening demon for a villain, Melinda displays great ingenuity up to the very end. The cast keeps the pages turning and provides an emotional core till the final page.