Book Review: The Silver Revolver: A Western Crime Thriller by John Shirley

 The Silver Revolver: A Western Crime Thriller by John Shirley

 356 pages, Paperback
Published October 11, 2025 by Rough Edges Press

 

Of living writers, no one has taken up more space on my shelves than John Shirley. With a career that defies genre, Shirley has written masterpieces in science fiction, horror, and westerns.  He has written media tie-ins that punch way above their weight class, and yet he is not done surprising us, his constant readership. Not every release is a masterpiece, no author can claim that, but what Shirley does is bring a sense of justice that matches his skills as a storyteller.  Perhaps his greatest magic trick is to make very single effort meaningful and fun.

When I finished The Silver Revolver I posted my first thoughts …An editor with a past breaks bad after his son dies from an overdose, and he survives a mass shooting on the same day. Finding the person responsible for his son’s death leads Slim and the reader into the criminal underworld. Action and quick-witted dialogue. Shirley brings his storytelling chops and sense to the West Coast crime epic.

From the back cover:

“A grieving father, a brutal overdose, a silver revolver-and nothing left to lose.

Slim Purdoux was once just another ex-con trying to go straight. After doing time in Texas for drugs, he landed a miracle job as a book editor in San Francisco. But fate had other plans. When his only son dies of a fentanyl overdose-and Slim is mistakenly caught up in a mass shooting. The weight of grief, rage, and injustice drives him to a dangerous edge.

Now hunted by cops and haunted by loss, Slim returns to the only thing he was ever good at: shooting fast and shooting straight. Armed with a custom silver revolver and a lifetime of regret, he plunges into the violent heart of the American underworld to settle the score with the cartel that killed his son.

What follows is a gritty modern western wrapped in a blood-soaked crime thriller, where vengeance is a drug stronger than anything on the streets-and justice is a bullet away.

Will Slim survive the war he starts? Or will the truth about his past destroy him before he even gets close?

The Silver Revolver is a feverish, unflinching dive into the darkest corners of vigilante justice, addiction, and the price of revenge.”

A Breaking Bad comparison is a pretty solid one. Silm is a great character, unlike Walt, he has a past he has buried. He has a respectable job and is co-parenting his son.  The novel opens with two powerful and depressing chapters. The death of a child, numbing and horrible happens just before Slim is witness to an extreme act of violence. These chapters are unsettling in the right way. 

 Shirley’s stories are often centered on fathers who are in a struggle to do the right thing by their children. The pain that Slim feels over his failure as a father is deep and powerful part of the novel. 

“That he was born into drugs and died in drugs. Because I had gotten Meredith pregnant with him in college, when we’d both been doing some MDMA. X. Stoned, she’d been yielding and intellectually open and full of possibilities while her bitterness slept. She got pregnant in a waking drug dream. Frankie died in a torturous mix of MDMA and fentanyl.”

Slim is numb when he walks into another crisis. A mass shooting at his work, and his reaction to it is driven entirely by the hopelessness he feels. His actions might seem out of control, but the events he just lived through are enough to drive anyone mad. Justice, revenge, the line is thin for Slim.

Once he starts to investigate the underworld, we meet a series of characters who give Shirley a canvas to explore. A strength of the novel is minor characters are well-drawn. 

I loved some of the quick and witty dialogue; there are plenty of scenes like this…

“If you checked up—”

“I talked to the investigating detective.”

“Then you know they didn’t think I was a suspect for more than like ten minutes. The shooter confessed.”

“I did get that, yeah. But...you kill those two in Reno?”

“Just to watch them die?”

“Not funny.”

Okay, she knew when I was referencing a Johnny Cash song. She was even cooler than I’d thought.

“Which two in Reno?” I asked.

“There were more than two?”

“No, I mean—hold on now, what am I being accused of?”

I could've used a little used just a bit more of this back and forth.  But the novel also had one of the most descriptive and effective similes ever. 

“Now I felt like a cigarette butt hissing out in a urinal.”

The Silver Revolver is a fun read, although there are moments that challenge the reader. This is pure storytelling. Shirley has threatened that this might be the last novel, as good as it is I don want Shirley the novelist to go out this way. I want another Shirley SF novel. Some really, really, really, Really weird, like I know only he can.