Nate Cannon is a young Texas police officer joining the manhunt for serial killer William McGill across the newly settled Texas frontier. Nate has a strong sense of justice and ethics as he leaves his family behind to catch McGill. Nate's partners on the hunt fill him in on McGill's misdeeds and the other purpose for the mission, to bring back his partner's daughter, Lucinda, who has taken up with McGill. After escaping the brothel she was commissioned to, Lucinda has plans to follow McGill to Middle Bayou, chasing a tale of buried gold. When their dreams of gold don't pan out, Lucinda finds herself in another brothel, but this time she has a healthy fear of McGill. With Nate not far behind, Lucinda and McGill's reign is almost over.

The Outcasts is a historical fiction story of the wild west. Told from alternating points of view between Lucinda and Nate, the pacing is moderate and brings the reader on a journey as the two stories eventually collide. I was more entranced by Lucinda's story and her character. I don't know how to quite feel about her, but she is definitely interesting as both a victim and offender. Nate's character is steadfast and it was interesting to see his reactions to the twists in this case. I would have loved a point of view from McGill, I think it would have tied everything together better and given some motivation for all the killing. The ending was appropriate for all of the characters and I liked that Lucinda's character received an appropriate consequence, but was also happy.

This book was received for free in return for an honest review. ( )

Had potential, but didn't deliver as well as it could. Kent had great potential for her secondary characters, but their parts seemed rushed to me. I think it would have made it a better story to bring them out more. Lucinda and Nate were fine characters, but the story spends more than enough time in their heads that it became dull. ( )

This book moved slower than I expected, although it did pick up in the second half and the different strands of the story came together nicely. I struggled to really like any of the characters. I especially struggled with Lucinda, who I initially really wanted to like, especially after she escaped a brothel, but her inability to break from the pull of Bill Carter, a ruthless outlaw, and the lengths she goes to help him made her difficult to relate to. Overall, this was an interesting story, but I had been able to relate to the characters more. ( )

An American ending -- neatly tied up, happy coincidences, justice prevails. Bleh.
Can't say much about this book. It was fairly predictable and typical of a wild west good ranger/bad outlaw with hooker damsel story. I think the author was more enamoured with depicting a wild west than creating an enticing plot, because the former certainly seemed to take precedence over the latter. ( )

I liked this book set in the wild, wild west, with a cast of characters that you would expect in such a story, Texas Rangers, horse thieves, outlaws and hookers. The author seemed at times to waffle between making this a dark, gritty novel, or to take a softer approach and wrap it all up in a nice tidy bow. ( )