The lucky fool in this case is one William “Rooster” Brown: Nicknamed “Rooster” because he looks like one. At first glance, this may sound like it is going to be humorous but, it’s not. It’s listed under western fiction and that accurately describes it; although you can throw in a dash of mystery and a bit of love story.
Rooster, after being discharged from the army, settles in the small town of Merky, Texas. While on a mission to shoot Jeanine, a waitress who turned him down when he asked her out, Rooster stumbles onto a robbery in progress. He ends up saving the daughter of Mel Tucker, one of the town’s most influential people, and instantly becomes the town hero.
While Mel takes Rooster under his wing (no pun intended), the town Sherriff is convinced that he was at the diner because he wanted to rob it and is out to get Rooster. With Mel promoting Rooster and the Sherriff after him, Roosters life and confidence, goes from good to bad then back to good as he struggles to fit in.
After several long drawn out chapters of stage setting, he finally ends up marrying Mel’s daughter, the one he saved. I’ll stop here because I don’t want to give away any of the other plot twists.
Over all, I found One Lucky Fool to be an enjoyable story. It had a lot of plot twists and turns; some of which you can see coming and some that will not go where you think they will.
Aside from being too long and boring in places, the biggest issue I had was with the characters. Especially Rooster. One minute he’s a bumbling fool, then Mel’s ace business manager, then a drunken backward country bumpkin and finally back to a perceptive individual.
I also had trouble believing the actions of some of the other characters who plotted and planned one minute then, undid all their planning by doing something that made no sense.
My recommendation: An enjoyable read that’s a little hard to get through and has characters with vacillating intelligent levels.