Read @ Joe’s

Title: The Unkillable Frank Lightning (2025) Author: Josh Rountree Publisher: Tachyon Publications Book jacket: In this riveting historical horror novel, Frankenstein is vividly reimagined in the Wild West. With equal parts Cormac McCarthy, Mary Shelley, and Stephen Graham Jones, Josh Rountree deftly navigates the terrible aftermath of love and death. Joe says: The Unkillable Frank Lightning is a mighty attractive read. Josh Rountree unearthed a grave and has invited you to jump on in.

Call it Frankenstein meets Unforgiven, and you wouldn’t be wrong. Josh Rountree’s The Unkillable Frank Lightning earns every bit of that comparison. There’s shootings and stabbings. Arrows flying, horses chasing, folks lit on fire. Drinking, swearing, conjuring. Kinda like a Hee-Haw after-party once the cameras have been put away. This genre-breaking read captures the dirty wild west and then turns it all crooked as if stylized in a Mike Mignola Hellboy comic. Rountree’s cooked up a bold entry in the historical horror game, and fans of either genre ought to take note: this one ain’t to be missed.

Set in the early 19-aughts, Dr. Catherine Coldbridge is searching for a hulking, killing brute of a man – if you can still call him that – going by the handle of Frank Lightning. Used to be Frank Humble, back when he was six feet under. But now he’s walking again, thanks to some lightning, spellwork, and a heart that refused to quit. Catherine aims to fix that mistake, once and for all.

Rountree plays with time, and memory, and the myths we tell ourselves to sleep at night. Although leaning much more into the fictitious world of the dark arts than Mary Shelley’s Romantic-era debut breached, Rountree incorporates questions on humanity, of rising above a beastial nature, and the complications of both overconfidence and true love. About individuality and acceptance and how damn easy it is to give way to the monster inside. Most of the story rides shotgun with Catherine, and through her we get the aching weight of pursuit, of regret, of not knowing if you’re the hunter or the haunted.

Catherine brings along hired killers – twin brothers – with mis-intentions of safety in numbers. Frank, she learns, is part of a Wild West Roadshow where he is considered family among the misfits. Throughout the story, prejudices arise. Rountree does his best to shatter such archaic, lazy thinking; timely stuff that unfortunately bears repeating.

The Unkillable Frank Lightning skewers more into magic than science but this ain’t no Harry Potter tomfoolery with wands and backwards-sounding names. This is Lovecraft by way of Robert E. Howard, with a side of Brian Keene apocalyptic-voodoo. The magic here is nasty and raw laced with gunsmoke and grave dirt. Both blood-heavy and booze-soaked. These are the kind of spells that come with a cost, and sometimes that cost is your soul… or someone else’s. Josh Rountree unearthed a grave and has invited you to jump on in. 

The Unkillable Frank Lightning is a mighty attractive read. Can’t wait to see what Josh Rountree conjures up next. 

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Thank you, Kasey Lansdale at Tachyon Publications for the preview ARC and the introduction to Josh Rountree. Happy trails, indeed!