I have Unrepentant Sinner and have read it a couple of times. There is a consistent theme running throughout: Askins seemed to relish shooting unsuspecting people from ambush. A few of his kills were shootouts, but some of them were pretty cold-blooded. What always struck me as odd is that he tells of shooting a German soldier from behind, deliberately shooting him in the kidney with a Colt .38 Special. Then, seemingly out of character for him, he loads the wounded soldier in his jeep and takes him to an aid station.

I've always admired Askins, Sr. (a Major), who seemed like a decent guy who loved (and lived) to hunt birds. He managed to eke out enough of a living as a writer to support his birdhunting, but was hampered by a bad marriage and I'm sure the pain of having a psychopathic son. You can tell early on in the pages of Unrepentant Sinner that the reason Askins, Sr. pulled some strings and got his son a job in the Forest Service in the wilds of Montana was to try to keep him out of trouble.

Soon after Askins, Jr. died, Massad Ayoob, who has researched and written about gunfights for 40 years, wrote an article about him. He told the good and most of the bad, and strongly hinted that in the modern view of law enforcement, Askins, Jr. would be a criminal.