The Hell Bent Kid

The Hell Bent Kid is a 1957 American Western novel by Charles O. Locke. The protagonist of the book is Tot Lohman, the eponymous Hell Bent Kid a mild mannered teenager but a crack shot. Lohman shoots dead a man from the Boyd family in self defense, and the vicious and numerous Boyd family is set on revenge. Lohman flees to New Mexico Territory to seek his father. The journey, across desert canyon country and pursued by the Boyds, is arduous and dangerous. Lohman finds his father hanged, and turns to face – and kill – his pursuers. His desert journey is mirrored in his internal journey of conscience as he is turned by necessity into a cold-blooded killer. The Hell Bent Kid was selected by the Western Writers of America as one of the twenty-five best Western novels ever written.