Latigo started out as a comic strip series written and drawn by Stan Lynde. The novels are based on the comic strip series and there are four books in the series, all written by Dean Owen. Double Eagle is the last book in the Latigo series.
Coming into the series with the fourth book, there is a lot of backstory that the author has to update the reader on. Cole Latigo Cantrell has quite a history, including fighting in the American Civil War and, after the war, facing down the many bad guys who are thriving in the lawless lands of the western frontier. His main goal in life is bringing justice to the tycoon, Claudius Max, who he believes ordered the murder of Cantrell's parents back when Cantrell was still fighting for the Union.
All through books one to three, Cantrell has failed to bring Max to justice, while Max continues to expand his railroad empire. Spoiler: he fails in this story too. In fact, he saves Max from certain death at the end of the novel. But this does nothing to resolve the conflict between the two men.
Cantrell is constantly on the move, fighting bad guys and bedding attractive young women. All the bad guys end up defeated and all the women end up disappointed when Cantrell refuses to follow up the bedding with a proposal, as in this edited conversation with an old girl friend, Aspen Groves:
Aspen: "Why not come away with me, Cole? ... You know I've been in love with you from the first."
Cantrell: "You collect men like a stable collects flies."
Aspen: "You know it isn't love ... not like it is with you. ... by now we could have a little house out there [Frisco] and maybe a kid and another one on the way."
Cantrell: "I like you, Aspen. But there's a lot of women I like."
As Cantrell works his way across the landscape, leaving behind a trial of dead men's bodies and broken-hearted females, Claudius Max is making a terrible mistake by placing his confidence in a new employee who is not the man Max believes him to be. And only his old enemy, Cole Latigo Cantrell, can save Max from the new guy and his gang of killers.
This was an OK read, given what it is, pulp fiction of the western variety. The sex scenes are understated, with no genitals described in intimate detail. The constant confrontations become quite tedious, but not, I suppose, for the readers whose main interest in the story is in that sort of thing.
Of course, we are supposed to admire Cantrell and despise his enemies. I had no trouble hating the trouble makers. But I could no longer like Cantrell after reading the above conversation between him and Aspen Groves. In it he comes off as petty and callous. In other words, she is good enough to screw but not good enough to marry. Sorry, but that makes Cantrell an jerk.
For what it is, and me not being a fan of the genre, it still is still a pretty good read. A bit thin on plot, not surprisingly, since the main point of the book is the fighting and screwing. (Lots more fighting than screwing, though.)
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