Winner, Spur Award for Best Western Traditional Novel and Robert Kroetsch City of Edmonton Book Prize
Longlisted, Leacock Medal for Humour

Francis Blackstone is a fourteen-year-old gunslinger with a heart of gold.

He’s fallen for the governor's daughter and resolves to make his mark, and his fortune, to win her favour. And what better way than to rob a Manhattan Company bank? Enter Bob Temple, the volatile outlaw who takes Francis under his wing— though not without a degree of suspicion— and so begins the adventures of the Blackstone Temple Gang as they crisscross the west in search of treasure, redemption, and the possibility of requited love.

After an encounter with a rival gang, Francis and Bob Temple are chased over the Sierras to California, where they enjoy unexpected fame as gentleman bandits. But their newfound celebrity brings hardships as well, and when their final job takes a startling turn, Francis is forced to discover what it means to make peace with a world that stands against him.

At once a tribute to boyhood enthusiasm and the heroes of classical quests, Like Rum-Drunk Angels is an offbeat, slightly magical, entirely original retelling of Aladdin as an American western.

Tyler Enfield is a writer, photographer, and film director from Edmonton, AB. He is the author of Madder Carmine, winner of the High Plains Book Award and a finalist for the Robert Kroetsch City of Edmonton Book Award, as well as three young adult novels. His film Invisible World, produced by the NFB and co-written with Madeleine Thien, is the winner of three Alberta Screen awards, including best director.

Tyler Enfield's profile page

• Winner, WWA Spur Award for Best Western Traditional Novel
• Long-listed, Leacock Medal for Humour
• Winner, Robert Kroetsch City of Edmonton Book Prize

As good a western as any of the 21st century

by Corey Redekop