Where to start with Hank Redding

Hank Redding writes literary Western novels, novellas, and short fiction. Many of the stories turn on a person trying to understand a town’s version of events, a debt that has outlasted its maker, or the line between doing what was ordered and choosing what comes next.

Most books stand alone. The one clear sequence is Dust Will Tell followed by its sequel, The Settled Dust. Here are several other ways into the work.

If you want to read something free first

Begin with The Weight of the Record, a free origin story. For a complete Western short story, try The Bend in the Current or Where the River Narrows. Both are short enough for one sitting and open on Hank’s site without an email sign-up.

If you want a mystery shaped by a town

The Last Good Rope begins with a woman accused and a town already leaning toward judgment. The Mercy Contract is the longer historical mystery: three strangers arrive in Nevada carrying separate pieces of one photograph, and the town’s old agreement gives them a deadline.

If you want a strange Western

Start with Dust Will Tell. Ellis Marr rides into a town where the sun and calendar seem fixed in place. Its sequel, The Settled Dust, follows Velo Bullhead into the same country, where a surveyor’s work asks who gets to decide what a place is called and what belongs on a map.

If you are drawn to railroads and winter survival

Car No. 47 follows an immigrant railcar separated from its train during a winter storm. The short-story collection also includes Down in Smoke, a free Western story about a rail worker waiting out a Montana contract while letters arrive from home.

If you want a character’s reckoning

Hairtrigger stays close to Amos Deakins during the last night before his execution. What Was Carried West begins after a gold wagon wreck, when the survivors find that one coin has gone missing from the account.

A simple order for the whole catalog

Start wherever you like. Read Dust Will Tell before The Settled Dust; the other books and novellas can be approached on their own. For current publication status, reading samples, and formats, use the linked official book pages.