Cold as Hell: Black Badge I
This month, I’m looking at the wild west, but since we have 5 Sundays this month, I’m starting with a fiction book, specifically from the Weird West subgenre, making this weeks book Cold as Hell, book one of the Black Badge series by Rhett C. Bruno and Jaime Castle. So let’s do this.
Weird West, just to give a little more background, is a novel set in the American west, like heyday American West, Billy the Kid, Wyatt Earp, Tombstone, Deadwood….but includes the supernatural, like vampires, werewolves, shape shifters...or in this case, a Yeti. Let me back that up a little bit.
The hero of our story is James Crowley, who was killed in a shootout approximately twenty years before this story starts. Now, I initially assumed, based on the story, that the one redeeming act of his life, performed near the very end, is what earned him this place in purgatory as a black badge. I’m not so sure now, but that’s more because of the epilogue, which I don’t want to go into because of spoilers. The book is not so old that I feel I can go around giving full play by plays.
So anyways, Crowley, having been killed in a hail of bullets, was, well to cadge a line from Supernatural, gripped tight and raised up from perdition. Except it wasn’t Castiel. His angel handler is Shargrafein, and she has a job for Crowley, which is to stop the trio who have been robbing banks, with the aid of supernatural powers, which the White Throne has pegged as demonic in origin.
Crowley, is a black badge. His “marshals badge” is literally engraved in his chest, no one knows what he is, most assume he’s a bounty hunter, and he does not dissuade them from this notion because bounty hunter is easier to explain and less crazy sounding than gods justice here on earth.
So he heads to the site of the last bank robbery and finds death has already happened, due to the deputy lost his cool and accidentally shot the sheriff in the back of the head. Friendly fire is always a risk, so rather than confirm for the deputy what the deputy already suspected, Crowley does a little investigating and discovers one of the culprits is a Yeti.
Now, Yeti, in this universe, is not an abominable snowman. I mean, that ends up being the final result, but it’s not natural. It’s wholly supernatural. When a soul becomes so enraged that it seeks assistance from hell, a demon takes up residence in their hearts. And in this universe, Hell is not hot. It’s ice cold. So as the demon gains a deeper hold on it’s victim, the person who made the bargain turns into a Yeti, and is able to wield ice as a weapon, calling down hailstorms and creating ice walls as a shield.
Shar, as he calls his angel to irritate her, sends him towards the next town and in a big old heaping pile of foreshadowing, his black badge starts to twitch as he gets pulled off mission to confront a Nephilim. Now, unlike in Supernatural, Nephilim do not look human, and typically lean more towards the demonic branch of the family tree. Crowley does his best to save the ensnared couple and walks away with an interesting version of Pans pipes, which plays a role later in the story...but enough on that, no spoilers.
At the next town, he arrives as the robbery is taking place and notices some unique markings on one of the robbers, that says the yeti is not the only supernatural being taking part in the robberies. Shar is less than pleased with his performance and leaves him on ice for a bit, metaphorically and literally speaking.
When she breaks him out of his time out, his only friend, who is also his incredibly smart horse Timperina, is waiting for him, as they continue to track the bad guys and try and solve what the hell is going on. And it all leads back to a genuinely bad guy who is at the heart of it all, and the “bad guys”, the bank robbers….are not as bad as all that.
Along the way he meets an Irishman set on learning all he can about the supernatural, and an old friend who helps him out in several very key moments. And I believe this crew is the set up for book two, which I have ordered, but my husband will probably finish before me.
So, I’m happy to go all in with non-fiction books, but I always try to be circumspect with fiction so as not to ruin the story, ESPECIALLY with recent fiction, and this one was released in 2022 (?), with books two and three being released in 2023 and 2025 respectively, and an audible and/or graphic novel prequel being released in 2020, so I don’t want to wreck the story. But, this was a fun book. It kept me reading past my designated page read on any given day, and I ended up getting the audible versions of all of them for my husband, who is also enjoying them.
So if you like the Weird West, pick up Black Badge 1, Cold as Hell, by Rhett C. Bruno and Jaime Castle.
