To Guns

When we left Nicki McJacob in Regret Things, trouble had stormed through her front door at dinnertime, ruining her family’s dinner plans. Now Sin and Nicki are back, and wherever they go, a few things follow. Guns. Money. Bad guys in good suits. In To Guns, we meet the McJacob family two years past that dinner debacle, safe but unhappy in a European paradise, missing the American dream they left behind.

As Nicki considers moving the family back to a small town nestled into the Colorado Rockies, risks of coming stateside be damned, little brother Sin is hooking up with the synergistically named Sindy. Suddenly, it’s looking like an idyllic time for a family reunion.

But Matt Ingwalson isn’t that type of author, and this isn’t that type of book. This is a guns-up book, a chase and showdown type of book. A world weary hit man is hot on Nicki’s heels. Then, gun-happy Sin steps into the wrong back-country domestic dispute. All this escalates into a classic Western gun battle that is at times hilarious, and at times high-throttle, but always memorable.

Sin and Nicki are a great combination of stealth and sass. Gun-loving, ever-brooding, smooth Sin is always an enigma, and Nicki stands as his flamboyant and unapologetic opposite. Ingwalson also brings to life Sin’s love interest Sindy, a self-proclaimed “skater girl” who manages to hold her own with the rough and tumble Kenfax and McJacob clans.

Ingwalson once again uses his trademark smooth, noir style to draw the reader into the novella while not distracting from the action at hand. To Guns is written in a novella style as it follows the action of this single chase to Colorado, so it is great for thriller fans looking for a quick read to pick up and breeze through.