I would like to thank the author for an advance copy of this novella in exchange for a fair and honest review

Publisher – Rattleback Books

Published – 8th April

Price - £2.49 Kindle eBook

In the Western States, it doesn’t pay to count your blessings.

Professor Malago Browne, once the most notorious mathematician in the west, has been trying to leave her outlaw past behind and lead a quiet life. But all that changes when her former partner – the deadly and capricious Pierre de Fermat – shows up with a proposition of a lifetime.

One last job, one last ride, a heist big enough to escape the tyranny of the Capitol forever.

With a misfit crew of renegade topologists and rebel statisticians, Browne and Fermat prepare to commit the crime of the century. Little do they know the odds are stacked against them…

Maths and westerns – they don’t usually immediately together spring to mind, do they? But ponder the maths of a perfect shot – you need someone who can quickly work out angles, speed and distance – all performed in microseconds. Stark Holborn has run with this idea and created an alternate Wild West in the exhilarating Triggernometry creating a great adventure story where the fastest mind in the west beats the fastest gun.

In the setting of this story parts of the US world jave really turned on experts (so perhaps not quite so alternate) in particular mathematics has got the people’s ire. You can be easily killed or arrested of you show you’re a dab hand at geometry, numbers and its various branches. Mathematicians have gone underground as outlaws – armed and having to do dirty jobs to survive. Enter two of the most renown/infamous outlaws ‘Mad’ Malago Browne and Pierre ‘Polecat’ Fermat; but as with many successful outlaws there is a time you eventually tire of being on the run. Browne has gone into hiding in plain sight until Fermat calls and despite her reservations finds herself with Pierre hired by a ruthless man for the one last high stakes job that could buy them a ticket out of the States and away from persecution. They need a gang of the toughest mathematicians not yet in prison. But as with any group everyone has their own agendas.

While the idea of these deadly mathematicians can raise a smile, Holborn has decided to avoid going purely for laughs. This is a western adventure with action, deceits and people with histories settling scores. It just so happens that in this novella a lot of the main cast are some of the world’s most famous mathematicians; but here portrayed as classic gunslingers. We are told the story from Malago’s point of view and that’s a key part of the story’s success. As well as creating a setting where you can feel the dust on your skin and the sun beating down on you get the pathos of someone who has seen her science so firmly rejected by the world in favour of ignorance. The idea of people being so keen to embrace ignorance chimes with our own times and does not seem so alien perhaps as it would have a few years ago. The overall effect though is a world that feels fascinating and has lots of room to explore.

That itself is interesting but we also get a delicious fast paced tale of action and tension as the gang try to evade the government. Starting with a memorable gunfight we do get some classic scenes that you would expect in any Western - the town gunfight, barroom brawl and a train heist. Holborn avoids making any of these feel like stereotypes and with the quirky cast that assembles we get people that we start to root and fear for – most of all Malago who is such an engaging cynical narrator as she reluctantly goes on one last job - a nice balance of a brilliant mind, a reluctant gunslinger and yet someone who is very very good at what she does; watching her let rip is very entertaining and a credit to Holborn’s ability to tell a tale.

This is a great read and I think like me a great introduction to reading westerns as a genre. If you’re looking for a fast-paced adventure story with characters with interesting paths and futures, then this would be a great way to take you away from your confinement and into the Wild West of yesterday. I would love to read and explore more of this world in the future – like the gang well worth hunting down!