Book Review: A Western Horror

The Unkillable Frank Lightning by Josh Rountree

Published: July 2025

Summary from Goodreads:

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, Rountree deftly navigates the terrible aftermath of love and death.

Catherine Coldbridge is a complicated woman: A doctor, an occultist, and, briefly, a widow.

In 1879, Private Frank Humble, Catherine’s husband, was killed in a Sioux attack. Consumed by grief, she used her formidable skills to resurrect him. But Frank lost his soul after the reanimation, and disappeared after a killing spree. Unable to face her failure and its murderous consequences, Catherine fled to grieve.

Twenty-five years later, Catherine has decided she must make things right. She travels back to Texas with a pair of hired killers ready to destroy Frank. But Frank has remade himself as the Unkillable Frank Lightning, traveling with the Wild West Show.

Reaching for a last chance at redemption, Frank and Catherine are at an impasse. As time runs out, their final choices may result in considerable bloodshed.

Confession:

I ended up quite enjoying this version of Frankenstein set in the Old West quite a bit. I had a bit of a rough start with it, but that was totally on me, just didn’t have the time to give it the attention it deserved. But when I finally sat down and really focused on the story, I ended up really liking it. In fact I found it quite riveting and ended up finishing it in one day.

This is a Frankenstein retelling, but with some interesting differences. It is set in the Old West in the late 1800s to early 1900s. The Dr is a woman, who not only has a medical degree, but also is a practitioner of a type of magick. Catherine Coldbridge was a bit hard to like. As a young doctor she was rash and overconfident in her abilities. She was also a bit of a bully when she didn’t get her way. The older version was full of self loathing and pity and was haunted by what she had done. But she also wanted to right what she thought was a huge wrong, and you sort of have to admire that.

The story has two timelines. The events where Catherine resurrects her dead husband, which happened 25 years in the past, and the present day (well 1905) when she is trying to find Frank and kill him. These two timelines eventually meet up and that is when things get quite interesting. Frank has found his humanity and has friends and has lived a full life as much as he could. Things do escalate quite quickly when the two killers Catherine hired end up being too hot headed. The two timelines really worked well for this story and was reminiscent of the original novel.

The writing was excellent, although a bit hard to get into at first. The descriptions of Texas, and the Wild West Show were wonderfully well done and made me feel like I was there. The dialogue felt a little stilted at times, but nothing to really turn me off the story. Although that cover does give the impression that this will be quite the horror book, like the original it isn’t full of gore. There are a few squeamish scenes, but nothing outrageous. This book embraces a lot of genres and does all of them well. The ending was also a bit of a surprise but fit quite well with the rest of the story.

If you enjoy Frankenstein retellings this is one you need to add to your list. It is full of interesting and at time lovable characters, an old west setting, sprinkled with some occult magick and does an excellent job of navigating the themes of love and death.