Upcoming Books For June and July

For July 2009

Seven Slash Range
by Bennett Foster
Center Point Large Print Hardcover



Rider of Death Valley
by Dane Coolidge
Leisure Books




Valley of Outlaws
by Max Brand
Center Point Large Print Hardcover


The Quest
by Max Brand
Five Star Western Series Hardcover


Long Bow
by Lauran Paine
Center Point Large Print Hardcover


Six-Gun Caballero
by L. Ron Hubbard
Galaxy Press

from Midwest Book Review
"The plunging action of Six-Gun Caballero takes place on the ranch of Michael Patrick Obannon, who finds the one thousand acres he inherited from his father overrun by a band of renegades bent on keeping the land themselves. The plot pits Obannon's raw courage against seemingly unsurmountable odds as he makes a lone stand against the desparadoes. The late L. Ron Hubbard wrote hundreds of novels and short stories in the fields of science fiction, mystery, action/adventure, and westerns. Six-Gun Caballero is a "time lost" classic from 1938. Highly recommended for all western adventure fans."


The Cowpuncher
by Bradford Scott
Leisure Books


Shadow On The Land
by Wayne D. Overholser
Five Star Western Series Hardcover


Zane Grey's Lassiter: Brothers Gun
by Jack Slade
Leisure Books



For June 2009

Range of the Golden Hoofs
by John Trace
Leisure Books


The Trial of Apache Junction
by Lewis B. Patten
Center Point Large Print Hardcover

"Sheriff Owen Buck has Johnny McGrath in jail, waiting to hang for killing the man who was hired to evict him from his homestead. To make matters worse, he's also accused of raping the judge's wife! Buck is caught between the demands of the cattlemen — who long to see McGrath hanged — and the settlers, who want him to go free. And as Buck tries to keep the peace, Apache Junction seethes with violence simmering beneath the surface, just waiting to erupt into a bloody hell. Sheriff Owen Buck is an honorable man and won't be swayed. He'll do what is right and then pick up the pieces of his town."


Lawman: Massacre Trail
by Lyle Brandt
Berkley

This is the fourth in a traditional Western series starring gambler turned lawman Jack Slade.

"U.S. Deputy Marshal Jack Slade must stop cross-country carnage.

"The homestead killers have been cutting a bloody swath across Oklahoma Territory, leaving behind a trail of corpses, slaughtering whole families on isolated farms and stealing their livestock. Slade follows the trail of bloodshed to the town of Paradise, where he aims to stop the butchers— before Paradise becomes a hell on earth."


Cutthroat Canyon
by William W. Johnstone and J.A. Johnstone
Pinnacle Books

Despite being gone for the past several years, William W. Johnstone keeps churning out fun potboiler Westerns. Digging deep into the writer's left over files, J.A. Johnstone (relative or pseudonym?) builds on ideas the elder Johnstone left unfinished. Cutthroat Canyon is the third in the new Sidewinders series.

"Sometimes, it's bad to be good. That's what happens when Scratch Morton and Bo Creel are rewarded with a gold mine for saving a rich man's bacon. The catch: this mine is a magnet for marauding Mexican banditos. Budding capitalists, Scratch and Bo fight back. That's when they discover that the thieves aren't who they thought they were, some really bad guys are on the way, and a beautiful woman might just be the most dangerous bandit of all - the kind that can steal your heart. For Scratch and Bo, this gold mine might make them rich. But it's more likely to get them killed - just as soon as they can figure out who wants them dead..."


Wheel of Fortune
by Max Brand
Leisure Books


The Hunkpapa Scout: A Western Trio
by Will Henry
Center Point Large Print Hardcover



By Way of Wyoming
By Curtis Bishop
Center Point Large Print Hardcover

Bishop was an old hand at the pulps. He appears to have spent much time writing for sports pulps like Fight Stories, The All-America Sports Magazine, Best Sports, Football Stories, Baseball Stories, and Ten Story Sports; and for the Western pulps of the '30s and '40s like Lariat Story Magazine, Texas Rangers, Big-Book Western Magazine, and Western Action. A Tennesseean by birth, Bishop died in at the age of 55.


Range Feud
by Ray Hogan
Five Star Western Series Hardcover

"On his way to his friend's ranch, Jess Holloway sees two men spooking a herd of cattle into a stampede, running toward a butte's sudden rim. If they go over the rim, the cattle will be killed. There is no way Jess can know that in trying to stop the stampede, in tangling with the two riders who instigated it, he is going up against men working for his friend, and that such an effort will make him hated at the very ranch he intends to ramrod."


Son of a Fast Gun
by Hascal Giles
Center Point Large Print Hardcover


Santa Fe Wagon Boss
by Cliff Farrell
Thorndike Large Print Western Series Hardcover


The Ridgerunner
by Ray Hogan
Thorndike Large Print Western Series Hardcover

Ups and Downs Along The Way

The Way of the West
Leisure Books
October 2008
Long Ride, Hard Ride
by Elmer Kelton


The Way of the West appears to be an experiment by Dorchester Publishing’s Leisure Books, one that has not been repeated. It is a trade paperback, a larger size (8¼ by 5¼) than the smaller mass market paperback, and sells for $12.95. The reason for the experiment is not entirely clear. There are only three short novels included in the volume, one original by Cotton Smith, one from the late pulp era by Elmer Kelton, and one by Max Brand that is often reprinted. Leisure may be marketing this package for the library market where larger books may get more attention. Your average reader of Westerns, though, is probably not going to plunk down twice what it usually costs for a standard paperback that contains only marginally less fiction. Too, there really isn’t a consistency in the type of stories told, or the way they are told. West is more of a sampler, which highlights Kelton (the best of those included), who is not part of the Leisure stable of writers.

On to the stories …

Kelton’s entry is Long Ride, Hard Ride and was originally published in the late pulp Western Novels and Short Stories, their April 1953 number. It covers familiar ground that includes the late Civil War era, the Southwest – namely New Mexico – and warbound Comanches. Despite how familiar its themes and scenes are with the reader, as well as with the writer, the novella is fresh and entertaining while at the same time reminiscent of some great movies of the era.

Lieutenant Miles Overstreet is in charge of a motley band of soldiers who are more at home in a stockade than sitting on Confederate Army mounts. Overstreet came afoul of a jealous superior and was cast into New Mexico where Southern interests were being overrun by Federal forces. Most of his men hate him, and the feeling is mutual.

By chance Overstreet stumbles upon information that leads them to a hacienda where a cache of arms, ammunition, and gunpowder await a Union train of heavy wagons. Overstreet’s dreams of glory suddenly come alive again as he plans to capture the train and take the much needed weapons to Confederate forces in hopes of fighting back the Union horde.

Comanches are an ever-present danger, like a bogie-man floating in the shadows of the night. But glory for the Confederacy, and redemption for himself spurs Overstreet onward despite the danger and the malevolence of his rebellious men.

With little effort the gray capture the Union troop and their wagons. All of the soldiers head out for a known Confederate location, the blue disarmed captives. To ensure a passing Union patrol does not fire on the vulnerable wagon train, Overstreet takes a fiery woman named Linda Shafter hostage and seats her prominently atop one of the wagons. She is the daughter of the hacienda’s Union-supporting master. It is Overstreet’s thought that a Union patrol would not hesitate to kill other soldiers, even their own, to keep the munitions from falling into the wrong hands, but they would not kill a woman.

Linda Shafter is the love interest in the piece. Overstreet is stricken with her on first look; she requires a little more time to warm up to him. It takes a Comanche raid and near death for all of them before she does. Although it is an ill-fated love as Overstreet must ride off into the sunset by story’s end.

If Long Ride, Hard Ride wasn’t filmed in the 1950s or early 1960s, it should have been. Everything about it screams motion picture. The proud lieutenant, the rough, spiteful enlisted men, a tough sergeant, a willful yet ultimately pliable girl, an improbable love story, enigmatic Indians, a slimy trader-cum-villain, and a stalwart, almost paternal enemy captain. There are more classic character types, too. Characters that you have seen before in any number of Western movies from the past 60 years. In fact, reading the story you feel as if you are watching a movie. Maybe one of he better Audey Murphy entries, or possibly a Glenn Ford picture.

Regardless of familiarity, Kelton’s story is compelling, suspenseful, and full of passion. Y may know that the hero will prevail, but you are tense through to the end uncertain just how he’ll do it.

This is an excellent, classic novella. Well worth your time.


Morning War
by Cotton Smith

Now, hang on. This actually ties up ….

Ralph Compton was just starting out in the 1990s when he got a phone call from a guy who wanted nothing more than to join with fellow Western writers and discuss choices. New to the WWA and publishing success, Mr. Compton was eager to talk and friendly about it. The wanna-be had noticed that Mr. Compton had explored fully a number of scenes in his first Trail epic, The Goodnight Trail, (one or two of these the wanna-be thought could have been left sketchy) while not developing others. He asked Mr. Compton in a respectful way to explain why he had made those choices.

Writers make a lot of choices. In fact, it may be that they make more artistic choices than even actors. Nearly every word is a choice. Nearly every action can make a change in the story, whether in direction or pacing or ultimate meaning. Dialogue, too, can alter reader understanding or offer more or less character insight. Piled up, these choices can draw a reader deeper into a story or, done badly, can break the unwritten contract with the author and tear a reader right out of the story.

Mr. Compton was only too happy to talk about this question from the wanna-be. He said that his editor had asked him to build up certain scenes, while leaving others a little more threadbare. It hadn’t been Mr. Compton’s choice. It had been his editor’s.

Likewise, Cotton Smith has made a lot of choices in the second entry in The Way of The West. His novella, Morning War, reveals through these choices – knowingly or not – an inner desire of the author to be a teacher. Now, the wanna-be from above knows Mr. Smith, in passing, and his profession is not teaching. However, as a moss back in the field of marketing and advertising, he undoubtedly takes on that role from time to time with the up-and-comers in his field.

Unfortunately it is primarily the teacher that is speaking in Morning War, not the storyteller. You can see this in the way he describes in minutia everyday living in the late 1800s. Things that take you away from the plot and action. You can see it in the lists of things that have no bearing on the story. At one point a couple of evil cowboys are threatening the hero’s girlfriend who runs the general store while at the same time they are trying to buy feminine products from her. It is an odd mix of events, but the latter never comes into play. We don’t know who the products are for, and it never bears on the story. It’s a meaningless choice, and it only serves to confuse rather than illuminate.

Most of this seems to be done to express the author’s knowledge of the era, something that would be showing off from another writer. Instead, it is Mr. Smith’s inner teacher instructing us about the era. Telling us what products were available back then for common ailments, or the things people needed to survive. None of this plays out in the story. It is simply a history lesson.

As for the story and characters, they stand in an unplanned, stark contrast to the previous story in the book, Long Ride, Hard Ride. While both are familiar in the history and language of Western stories, one is yet fresh and inviting while the other is a painful exercise in everything that should not be done by a writer. At least, that’s the way it appears to this reviewer.

Bear in mind that the focus in this blog is to review traditional, even pulpy Westerns on their own terms. There is, to this reviewer’s mind, far too much fluff, modern language, and politically correct attitude in many of the Westerns written today. Add to that the fact that so much of the current Western crop is overwritten and florid … well, there just seems to be comfort and enjoyment in the quick, well-told tale of yesteryear.

This is not to say that Mr. Smith’s story was PC and florid, it was not. It is simply that so many of his choices were made badly.

The Rio Kid Rides Again!!

Frontier Guns
by Tom Curry
The Rio Kid Western
December 19, 1939 issue
Better Publications (original)
Adventure House (reprint)

The Rio Kid, Rider for the right, blazes into battle when passion for plunder and greed for power rowel the border country! Follow Captain Pryor of Custer's Brigade as he plunges into mortal combat against the "Eagle!"


The lead “novel” in this classic pulp series is actually the very first in the adventures of the Rio Kid. With this adventure Bob Pryor, the Kid, begins a 76-issue run that ended in May 1950.

For those who do not know, Adventure House is a small press publisher specializing in pulp reprints. They have been around for about 20 years. They started with magazines that discussed the pulps in all their variety, reprinting key pulp stories in each issue. The fiction section became more popular with readers so Adventure House publisher John Gunnison readjusted his focus and in the process nearly single-handedly invented the modern pulp reprint business model and format.

Gunnison created Pulp Review, a magazine with all reprints from the pulp era. The publication is up to its 106th number and marks as one of its great accomplishments the entire Purple Invasion run from Operator 5. Alongside the renamed High Adventure, Adventure House publishes four full magazine reprints each month. Today he is nearly one-third the way through reprinting the G-8 and his Battle Aces series and he has taken a large bite out of the Phantom Detective and Secret Agent X series. The Rio Kid is his first western. Hopefully there will be more from this series, and perhaps from the rare Pete Rice series, too (editorial wish list).

There’s good reason for reprinting the Rio Kid: he's a true “hero” pulp, something Adventure House focuses on. Bob Pryor is fully grounded in the West, but his accomplishments are a bit on the wild side. His enemies, at least in this first issue, are hidden masters of crime who go by mysterious names. The Kid fights The Eagle this time, a fellow not yet ready to give up on his plundering ways now that the Civil War is done.

In contrast to the pulpy aspects of a masked villain, Bob Pryor involves himself with numerous historical figures, including a young General Custer, Benito Juarez – liberator of Mexico and deadly enemy of dictator Santa Ana – and Big Foot Wallace, famed mountain man.

There are many twists and turns as the Rio Kid tries to stop a land grab in which the Eagle has killed Pryor’s parents and many neighbors in order to steal all of the choice ranches. Despite the deep personal tragedy, the Kid plays it cool in order to maintain his anonymity. But the gang recognizes him and he is forced to flee for his life with guns blazing.

While on the run, Pryor makes friends with Juarez, reunites with Custer (his old commander), and finds the ranch families who were attacked by the Eagle’s men and fled into hiding in the deep timber. His adventures stretch up and down the Rio Grande and to both sides of the border. The Eagle and his minions, with treachery and murder, chase the Kid all over Texas, and vie for the red gold of Leguna – the lost mine.

Within these frenetic pages are so many comfortably familiar character and plot points which writer Curry takes and weaves confidently into real events of the time that played out in the region.

Make no mistake. This is no history lesson. This is pure pulp at its clichéd best. It reads quick and easy, each page is full of fun and action. While a steady diet of this much fluff can rot your teeth, The Rio Kid Western Frontier Guns is a welcome addition to the library. And like with almost all of the Adventure House offerings, we’re grateful to John Gunnison for making these classics available again.

For April 2009

The Unforgiven
by Alan LeMay
Leisure Books Reprint

This is not the book form of modern classic starring Clint Eastwood, Morgan Freeman, and Gene Hackman. Instead, it is the source of the forgotten classic starring Burt Lancaster, Audrey Hepburn, Lillian Gish, and Audie Murphy, and directed by John Huston.

"The Texas Panhandle was a harsh and unforgiving place, but the Zachary family managed to get by. Until their world was upended by an old enemy who started a vicious rumor about the true identity of beautiful seventeen-year-old Rachel Zachary. Now their neighbors want her dead, and a band of Kiowa warriors are out to claim her for their own. There’s only one man who will stand up for her. But in protecting Rachel, he might just be signing his own death warrant."


Tomahawk
by Wayne D. Overholser
Center Point Large Print Hardcover

"The Tomahawk Ranch was the biggest outfit in Salt Creek Valley. Kirk's father built it with his own harsh strength and controlled it with a fierce will. And nobody — not even his own sons — ever dared tell him what to do with it. The ranch was the best grazing land in the entire valley, and the Salt Creek settlers were getting desperate. Kirk's father had spent a lifetime running roughshod over the rights and pride of his neighbors, and he held on as the settlers faces grew even more grim. Only Kirk seemed to understand that they were headed straight for a range war. And it would be the worst kind of range war — neighbor against neighbor, and father against son."


Curry: A Western Trio
by Max Brand
Center Point Large Print Hardcover


Sheriff of Hangtown: A Western Duo
by Lauran Paine
Five Star Wester Series Hardcover

"Wesley Potter is the local law. One of his friends in the community is Dick Ruffin, an old-timer who has long raised horses on his small ranch. Ruffin is shot at close range without apparent motive - and there aren't any suspects. Potter can find no clue at Ruffin's ranch when he goes out there to investigate and to bury old Dick. But that night in town Potter's suspicions are raised when a stranger tries to sell Dick Ruffin's guns at the general store. "


Dorn of the Mountains
by Zane Grey
Leisure Books Reprint

"...the next moment he heard quick hoof beats of trotting horses. Peering out, he saw dim moving forms in the darkness, quite close at hand. They had approached against the wind so that sound had been deadened. Five horses with riders Dorn made out - saw them loom up close. Then he heard rough voices."


Guns on the High Mesa
by Arthur Henry Gooden
Center Point Large Print Hardcover


The Man From Laramie
by T. T. Flynn
Leisure Books

Finally! The Man From Laramie (1954) is back in print! Leisure Books (Dorchester Publishing) has begun to reprint books that provided source material for some of the most famous Western movies ever. They have recently reprinted The Searchers (John Wayne's/John Ford's masterpiece), Destry Rides Again (from Hollywood's "Best Year" - 1939 - starring Jimmy Stewart and Marlene Dietrich, The Unforgiven (above), and Stewart/Anthony Mann's classic, Laramie. If ever Leisure were to create a Western companion imprint to its wildly successful Hard Case Crime series, The Man From Laramie would be the first. It's a dark, powerful, tough story with solid characters, action, and not a small mystery.

"The foreman lay in the dust of the street, his face beaten and puffed, his hair matted with sweat and grime. And over him stood Will Lockhart, swaing with a deadening fatigue that barely left him on his feet.

"'Why'd you do it?'" the man asked him.

"'Well,'" Lockhart said, "'you might say on account of some good wagons of mine that burned up. Or you could blame it on a rope that dragged me ways on the ground. But you'd be real close if you asked me about a brother of mine. Yeah, I guess I'd have to tell you. Because he's dead ...'"


For May 2009

Salt-Lick Range
by Lauran Paine
Wheeler Large Print Western

"When Deputy U.S. Marshall Dan Miller arrived in Jefferson, Idaho Territory, the Salt-Lick war was already in the making. After he'd been there a week, U.S. Marshall Fred Clampett was ambushed and nearly killed, leaving Dan the only lawman in the territory. It was Dan's hard logic which prevented bloodshed - 'til the last day when his own blood got spilled."


Pass Creek Valley: A Western Duo
by Wayne D. Overholser
Five Star Western Series Hardcover

In the main story, "Kim Logan has always worked as a gun hand, for the last year as trouble-shooter for the great Clawhammer Ranch owned by Peg Cody. The Clawhammer is now locked in a desperate struggle for mastery of the range with Hank Dunning, owner of the HD. The struggle between these two ranches is further complicated by the fact that Peg Cody wants the smaller ranchers on the mesa to be forced off their land so the Clawhammer can have access to their graze. This is something with which Kim Logan has no sympathy. But his most pressing job is to fetch to the Clawhammer a man named Yuma Bill who is coming in by stage, presumably with a bundle of money to help the local banker. Logan is certain that HD riders will hold up the same stage to get at Yuma Bill, and he intends to beat them to it."


The Cuchillo Plains
by Ray Hogan
Center Point Large Print Hardcover


Chaparral Marauders
by Tom Curry
Wheeler Large Print Western


Maverick Basin
by Dane Coolidge
Five Star Western Series Hardcover

This old timer was originally serialized in four parts in the biweekly The Popular Magazine from July 7 to August 20, 1920.

"Riding on the trail into Maverick Basin, Hall McIvor is waylaid at gunpoint by Isham Scarborough and his brother Red and is taken on foot to a dark room in an abandoned cliff-dwelling to be questioned. The Scarboroughs are convinced the stranger is a gunfighter, riding to join the Bassett clan. If so, they intend to hang him right there. Telling them his name Hall insists he is just riding through, has no knowledge of the Bassetts, and that he is searching for someone. Then things really get rough ... "


Bullet Brand
by Bradford Scott
Wheeler Large Print Western

Leisure often gets its pulp reprints from the large print and/or hardcover library publishers. They've been reprinting a number of the Bradford Scott stand-alone novels as well as his short pulp magazine work with his great Texas Ranger heroes Jim Hatfield and Walt Slade. Bullet Brand is another of Scott's stand alone stories. With luck Leisure will reprint this one, too, so the rest of us can read it.

"Black Pete became Walt Slade's co-partner. Sheriff Trayner tried to warn Slade but wound up fighting for his life. Marshall wrote a will in blood, with Slade the reluctant beneficiary. Undercover Texas Ranger Slade battles six-gun treachery to save his friends and the border country from the vicious terror of a killer-crazy outlaw."


Wilderness #60 - Outcast
by David Thompson
Leisure Books

This venerable series hits a bit of a milestone. The series is based on the true-life journals of Nathaniel King, one of the early mountain men, and his ever-growing mountain family. Thompson's books develop various journal entries and corroborating accounts to build a literary version of the King family. While on the thin side, each entry is packed with plenty of action and plot twists.


Fighting Rawhide
by Lewis B. Patten
Ulverscroft Large Print Hardcover


Resolution
by Robert B. Parker
Berkley Premiere Paperback Edition
and
Brimstone
by Robert B. Parker
Berkley Hardcover

The follow-up to Appaloosa, Resolution continues hired gun Everitt Hitch's journey in what Publisher's Weekly calls "...a sparse, bullet-riddled rumination on law and order, friendship and honor." Parker seems enamoured of the western and these themes (or is he just making another bucketful of cash?) because another sequel is also available this month. This third novel, Brimstone, follows Virgil Cole and Everitt Hitch on a journey through New Mexico and Texas to find the love he lost in Appaloosa. Can another movie be far behind?


.45-Caliber Widow Maker
by Peter Brandvold
Berkley Paperbacks

A prison wagon of caged killers means hell on wheels for Cuno Massey...

One of Brandvold's numerous continuing series, this is the fifth in the .45-Caliber entries. His work enjoys a lot of what is good about pulps without all of the fluff and puffery and pretenses of many current western writers.

Excellent Traditional Action-, Character-filled Western

Revenge of the Mountain Man
by William W. Johnstone
Pinnacle Books

This is the fourth in the long-running western-action series, The Last Mountain Man. Actually, there is a new "Last Mountain Man" series, released after Johnstone’s death, with the character Matt Jensen, the adopted son of the actual Last Mountain Man, Smoke Jensen. Be that as it may, Revenge is early in the first series when Johnstone was well and at the height of his writing prowess.

Revenge of the Mountain Man is a fun book. Full of action, gunplay, humor, bad guys that are really bad guys, and good guys that don’t put up with BS.

Among the better scenes are when Smoke’s wife Sally tries to explain to her New Hampshire born-and-bred parents, brothers, sisters, and other kin her love for the West and Smoke’s philosophy of justice and life. For those who haven’t read any of the books in this series, Smoke has a very simple philosophy – one akin to John Wayne’s character in The Shootist, J.B. Books – "I won’t be wronged, I won’t be insulted, and I won’t be laid a hand on. I do not do these things to others and require the same of them."

Smoke’s philosophy is in full bloom in this book. He is out for revenge, and makes no apologies. While away from his homestead, a number of outlaws arrive and nearly kill Sally. She recovers fairly quickly from her gunshot wounds, all the while watching her husband turn into a caged tiger, wanting to go after the attackers. Smoke knows that such violence will continue until either he is dead or the hardcases responsible for the attacks are six feet under. He gets word that one of the hardcases is named Rex Davidson, and that he has a grudge against Preacher, Smoke’s mentor. With the mountain man Preacher presumably dead, Davidson wants to take out his hate on Smoke. Shooting Sally was nothing more than a calling card to lead Smoke into a trap. Smoke realizes this but goes after Davidson none-the-less.

Pregnant, Sally packs up and leaves their home, the Sugarloaf, to return temporarily to her family in New Hampshire. She fully supports Smoke in what he must do, is proud of him, and understands that there will be a high body count by the time he’s through.

Davidson is holed up in a small valley town that he built and populated with other hardcases and psychopaths. The law has tried to rout the gang, but the valley and town are too well fortified. Smoke devises a plan where he plays a fop named Shirley DeBeers and then uses his natural artistic talents to set up an undercover identity that will put outlaws at ease. The plan works. He meets a tough hombre, stands for the man’s hazing, and is ultimately judged as a harmless sissy. In fact, outlaws enjoy having him around. Not only is he fun to pick on, but his sketch portraits of them become prized.

Unknown to the criminal band, however, Smoke has arranged with a band of Utes friendly to him, and a sheriff and his posse, to attack the criminal stronghold after Smoke has been accepted into the town. The plan works fairly well. Most of the criminals are killed. But Davidson and a handful of his faithful escape the hail of lead and disappear. It becomes clear that they are heading to New Hampshire to kill Sally and the baby.

Along with an old friend and ally, Louis Longmont – gambler, raconteur, and fast gun – and an Arizona Ranger named York, who had been undercover in the valley town, Smoke crosses the country to get to Sally in time.

Johnstone provides several climaxes in this story with many gunfights that produce a very high body count. He also turns his stuffy New England father-in-law into a western-style man who becomes quite capable of defending home and loved ones with fist and six-shooter without relying on an effete legal system.

Johnstone has fun with his characters, wild and unrealistic though they may be. While he may mean for them to be taken with a grain of salt, they illustrate his belief in strong, independent, self-reliant Americans who uphold the law and find true justice by taking the law into their own hands when the legal system either won't take a hand or lets them down.

The series is Strongly Recommended.

A Fun Change of Pace

The Knights of Misery
The Gunsmith, Giant #12
by J.R. Roberts (Robert Randisi)
Jove Books

In an interview with Robert Randisi that I found on the Internet, he is quoted as saying that he realized early on you could write a good western around the sex scenes required in an "adult" western. For the most part, Randisi seems to be doing that in his Gunsmith series, which is currently at monthly issue #327.

I generally like Randisi as a writer. After reading this interview, and coupled with the generally positive talk among western readers about the series and other such westerns, I picked up a few. I noticed on the cover of all the monthly issues is printed "The All Action Western Series." This bode well, too, as did the plot of this year’s annual Giant Gunsmith, The Knights of Misery. It all sounded like a pulp plot in which Jimmy Christopher might have become embroiled. Fun stuff.

And it turned out to be fun, too, even though it appeared that Randisi approached the story a bit tongue in cheek.

Randisi is good at writing Gunsmith (of course he’s had nearly 300 of them on which to perfect this part of his craft). Several elements about this story and its titular main character I found superior to its sordid brethren.

The sex scenes appear to be (you’ll pardon the expression) organic to the plot. There’s a purpose to them; they grow out of the story and characters. Also, Clint Adams – our hero, the renowned shootist reverently nicknamed The Gunsmith – is not involved in every one of them. Yet when he is involved in one, each is different. Like in most of the titles in the series (I’m doing a bit of assuming here), he becomes intimate with a couple of women. In Knights the women are quite dissimilar, each having her own motivation for (and method of) taking Clint to bed.

Another quality I liked is that Clint Adams is not a superman like Smoke Jensen or even the Trailsman. Rigorous activity leaves him tired. He sometimes isn’t sure what to do. He asks for help from others – and not just with his button fly.

This is not to suggest that character development is on par with, say, William Faulkner’s work. But it gives the reader characters that are a touch more rounded than cardboard.

In Knights, Adams is asked by his off camera Secret Service friend James West (you get the reference, of course) to investigate the disappearance of a missing and presumed dead agent who was spying on a gang that has taken over a town in Virginia. The gang is made up of an off-shoot of the Freemasons that calls itself the Knights of Masonry, which is bastardized by the terrorized townspeople into Knights of Misery.

As expected, Adams ferrets out the evil doers and saves the town. There isn’t much more to say about the plot. It’s really not worth mentioning.

While I enjoyed the read, the book is a bit of fluff, and ultimately disappointing. More than 140 pages go by before we get any real action (sex scenes notwithstanding). This belies the proud cover statement on each issue of Gunsmith, "The All Action Western Series." The plot and writing reminded me of a 1950s TV Western (again, sex scenes notwithstanding) where the characters move from one simple set piece to another and talk. There are precious few outdoor scenes (and almost nothing that couldn’t be shot on a minimally dressed soundstage). No chases or barroom brawls or midnight ambushes. There is one truncated shootout at the very end, but it is clean enough for family viewing.

In fact, I got the sense that a lot of this tale was truncated; that Randisi spent so much time on his characters – trying to keep them close to being real and not have them jumping to wild conclusions that would have sped along the plot and made room for more action – that he ran out of the proscribed number of pages and had to rush the ending. We are left hanging on several key issues, not the least of which is the promised assassination attempt of Grover Cleveland, which never materializes and, after page 16 is never mentioned again. Clearly here we have the deepest connection to the old pulps, many of which left forgotten plot threads dangling to the consternation of faithful readers.

I cannot recommend this book, and yet I won’t pan it. It was a fun read. And sometimes, that’s what it is all about.

Gun-play Action and Mystery Satisfies

Guns at Q Cross
Ace Double M-118
by Merle Constiner

"He took a hand in a game whose only rule was fire first!"

As with all Ace doubles, Constiner’s Guns at Q Cross is a short, rapid-fire yarn that would be quite at home in Thrilling Westerns magazine if it hadn’t been a paperback original written in 1965.

According to material I found on the Internet, Constiner was happier with this length of story rather than novel length. In fact, he wrote very few full length novels. His modest pulp output tended to short stories and novellas. When the pulps died out he moved quickly and fairly easily into the original paperback market.

In Guns at Q Cross Stiles Gilmore is a man trying to mind his own business who is swept up into the middle of deadly schemes and cattle rustling. Gilmore arrives from Texas in the small town of Prentiss Creek, Idaho, to oversee the final sale of his horse herd, which is several days behind him on the trail, to a local rancher named Le Queux, the heavy-handed owner of the Q Cross. Gilmore is renowned for the quality of his horse stock, and the animals are much sought after.

As often happens in such stories, there is tension in the town that affects the newcomer. Gilmore tries to ignore it, but between having to dodge wild shots and trade punches with cowhands, he finds himself at the center of a pressure cooker getting ready to explode.

The valley is suffering badly from rustlers. The working theory is that the cow thieves are in cahoots with ranchers far to the north on the other side of a mountain range. It is also believed that the rustlers have an ally within the valley. This news concerns Gilmore, fearful that his herd might be stolen before they arrive and he can sell them. His concern increases when he stops receiving telegrams from his drive foreman.

Gilmore is befriended by a local wiseman who is outside the ruling circle, but is aware of all that is going on. The two men start to investigate, which stirs up more trouble. And then Le Queux does something that surprises both Gilmore and the reader: he offers to buy Gilmore’s horse herd sight unseen, even though it’s still on the trail and vulnerable to rustlers.

Reviews of Constiner’s work talk about his attention to detail and his ability to create unusual characters and situations. In Guns he effectively manages both. He also creates a fairly compelling mystery – another of his literary devices. In his lengthy discussion of Constiner on Pulprack.com, Peter Ruber says that most of Constiner’s works "– whether detective yarns, historical adventures or Westerns – were essentially mysteries of one kind or another." His mystery in Guns plays out well to the end.

Ruber also discusses the motivation of Constiner’s heroes. "No matter [the occupation of] his heroes – whether saloon owner, rancher, cattleman or drifter – all have a sense of justice in a land often without law. They track the killers and badmen with relentless determination." This is also true of the character Gilmore. While he’s concerned with the fate of his own herd, his sense of justice is strong. He’s compelled to end rustling in the valley and see that badmen are sent to jail. No matter how many bullets he has to dodge, Gilmore relentlessly pursues the truth.

The reason Le Queux wants to buy Gilmore's vulnerable herd of horses, the fate of the rustlers, and the identity of the criminal spy are all revealed by the end of this short but exciting tale. As with many of these Ace Doubles the writing seems a bit condensed, yet Guns is easier to read than other such stories having seemingly been fitted with a master tailor's skill specifically to the format. Guns of Q Cross is a fast-moving, engaging story that entertains and is well worth the read.

Not A Great Outing for Judd

Bad Night at Dry Creek
by Cameron Judd
Leisure Books


After Bad Night was published, Cameron Judd did not have another book published for eight years. Odds are he got wrapped up in his life and didn’t find the time to write. But … maybe … just maybe, the reason for the delay was this book.

In short, it’s not very good.

There are many recognizable and comfortable western elements. A town under siege. A marshal standing alone. A gambler with a lust for revenge. A stalwart beauty supporting her man. An army of evil men.

Bad Night was never a book that would stand out, though. It is written unevenly. The quality of the writing is about the same throughout, but how and why and when the author shifts focus is quite often jarring and sometimes hard to follow. Judd can be ludicrously flowery at times. He’ll use 10 words when two will do. There is an awkward formality to many of the passages. I’m not sure if he’s trying to pepper the story with language from another time, or if he’s just trying to show off. In either case, it doesn’t work. Still other passages are just …. confusing:

Listening to a friend getting gunned down: “Arlo’s body jerked with each jolting roar of the pistol that cleared its throat out on the road not fifty feet away from him.”

Yet ... the story did have an older feel to it, like it was written in another time, and I usually like such stories. There is a soupçon of Louis L’Amour (if you'll pardon the use of a showy little word). Just a hint, a flavor in the way that the story’s reach is not overlong and the action is contained within a few characters.

Most of the story takes place within the town of Dry Creek, a hamlet nestled in the Colorado hills. Charley Hanna is the son of the former marshal, a beloved figure. Charley is well thought of, too. Very quickly, though, things turn bad as a gang of thugs is looking for money stolen from them by one of their own; a man who, dying, stumbles his way to Charley Hanna. Now everyone thinks Charley has the money or knows where it is. The townspeople turn on him out of greed, and the gang threatens to destroy the town if either the money or Charley are not handed over to them. It is this closed atmosphere and simplicity of plot that reminds me of L’Amour.

His action passages, too, are quite good. The story becomes clear during these times of action, and there is more logic in the story and plot at those times than in the quieter moments. Publishers Weekly is quoted on the book cover: “Judd is a fine action writer!” There’s no arguing with them.

But there are tremendous plot holes in the story. It always bothers me when a beloved figure is suddenly hated and distrusted. Especially when the person stirring up trouble is obviously held in low regard. People are fickle, it’s true. And when money is involved things can get very ugly. But the sudden turn of the townspeople away from Charley, and then their fairly quick return to him 100 pages later struck me as nothing more than a plot device employed simply to eat up real estate.

For those who like Cameron Judd, Bad Night is a book worth reading to compare to his other stories. I plan on reading his next book, published eight years after this one, titled Bitterroot, just to see if he gets better in intervening years.

Pure Pulp by Controversial Figure

Branded Outlaw
by L. Ron Hubbard
Galaxy Press

Saying the name L. Ron Hubbard garners a "galaxy" of reactions. Many spit his name over his Cybernetics, others laugh about it, still some ignore all of that controversy and just read his writings. This review will take a tunnel view of the man and look only at his pulp publishings.

A couple of years ago, Galaxy Press, the outfit that publishes all of Hubbards works - and only Hubbard's works - announced to bookstores that they intended to publish the author's entire pulp output. Their plan was to create undersized tradebooks that carried like-genre stories (a lead "novel" and one or two short stories, complete with original interior pen-and-ink artwork where available) and offer them monthly.

Galaxy pulled that plan, tweaked it, and last September published five volumes, one of which was the western Branded Outlaw from the October 1938 issue of Five Novels Monthly. The next batch of four are slated to come out in January 2009 and will include Six-Gun Caballero. If experience teaches anything, these may be as hard to find as the first batch.

In searching for a way to start this review, I couldn’t quite find the right words. Branded Outlaw is a pulp story in the purest sense.

We’ve seen the story before, the plot, characters, good guys, bad guys, even the horses. That’s when I thought of the word: Obvious.

Which really isn’t a bad thing. It is a pulp, after all. And what we want from those old magazine stories is action, plenty of gunplay, good guys and bad guys who act like it, and at least a hint of a plot. In short: fun.

Hubbard delivers, with great satisfaction.

Lee Weston is returning home at the written request of his father. Dad writes that he’s having rustler problems with range hog, Harvey Dodge. Lee finds his father dead and his boyhood home burned to the ground. He goes gunning for Dodge but things go badly. Shot-up, he stumbles on a beautiful woman in the wilderness.

Galaxy's four color PR and sales brochure continues the plot synopsis ... "As fate would have it, [this is] Dodge's beautiful yet headstrong daughter, Ellen, [who] finds Lee's unconscious body and secretly nurses him back to health. But when Lee insists on continuing his plan for revenge, he gets himself into a heap more trouble - false accusations, a near lynching at the hands of an angry mob and the scorn of the only girl he ever [loved]."

You see how this is playing out …. Anyway, all works out in the end after lots of horse-chasing, gunsmoke, and blood.

A quote on the book jacket from The Entertainer says these stories are “…written by a man who helped form the style itself.” This is pure hyperbole. Zane Grey, Max Brand, Ernest Haycox, Luke Short, Walt Coburn, Steve Fisher, and others … those guys defined the best of pulp westerns. Hubbard merely dabbled in it, like so many other authors. But he did it well enough to create a body of work that, if not classic, is at least fun to read.

And let's not dismiss that last statement as a backhanded compliment. So much in today's market is not fun to read. In too many books characters are unnecessarily dark and moody; plots are conviluted to the point of nonsense; backstory fills page upon page with useless information; and PC psychoanalisis has replaced the good old fist fight. A well written pulp story is worth the acid-free paper it's reprinted on. Hubbard is a welcome addition to this growing industry. With the vast majority of his work available to be reprinted, Western pulp fans have years of good reading to look forward to.

On a personal note, though, I'm a bit offended by Galaxy's inclusion of what amounts to a dictionary of American slang from the 1930s and 1940s. Most of these words are well known, even the western slang. And what isn't immediately known becomes clear in the story. This takes up a bunch of pages, as does the lengthy preview of upcoming volumes, which could be devoted to another story. At $10 a volume, I'd rather Galaxy include another yarn.

However, Galaxy has offered subscribers a neat "premium." They had a deck of playing cards with cover art from the western pulps in which Hubbard's stories appeared. It may still be available.

Format Hurts Worthy Hogan Effort

Track the Man Down
by Ray Hogan
Ace Double 75150
1961


Not one of Hogan’s better efforts. A mainstay of classic Westerns, Hogan has been active in the field for 40-plus years. Maybe this was one of his early tales. Who knows? Seriously … does anybody know?

Nearly 40 years before Godfather Michael Corleone uttered the fateful words, “Every time I think I’m out, they keep pulling me back in,” (or thereabouts) Ben Dunn thinks similar thoughts. He’s hard man, a bounty hunter, who has gone after his share of toughs. Not everyone he tracked down made it back in his custody alive. Along the years Dunn made enemies. He’s out of that life now, making a quiet home for himself on a plugged hole of a ranch, eking out a living and keeping clear of trouble.

But, as everyone knows, trouble seems always to find a man like Ben Dunn. His neighbor is a wicked old cultus inaptly named Pope who’s after as much of the valley as he can grab. He’s dying, though, and leaves most of his heavy lifting to ranch foreman Jack Marr, the ruthless power behind the man. Marr uses his fists and his cronies to cause terror in the valley and make trouble for Dunn. Dunn, however, has just returned with a paper that proves disputed territory is actually his, not Pope’s.

On the way home he stumbles across a girl who is on her way to see Pope. She is Pope's daughter, Laura, and is completely unknown to him. She has proof of her parentage and wants to meet her father for the first time. She is totally guileless, an innocent girl being introduced to the wilds of the west. Dunn helps her out and when they are attacked on the way to see Pope he protects her.

All seems well when suddenly Dunn is accused of murder and the girl is on the run. Pope has been killed. Marr says that Dunn did it in cahoots with Laura to get the old man’s land. Marr has plenty of men and they make things hot for Dunn. Laura, on the run and hiding in the desert, finds her way back to Dunn.

Dunn’s home is burned, his stock run off. He’s shot at and chased. All the time he struggles to protect the girl. In the end he manages to convince a few of Pope’s old hands that the girl is the real deal and that Marr, greedy and ruthless, is actually behind the killing.

What starts off as a common, but well-told oater, seems to lose steam about three-quarters of the way through. Another 40,000-word quickie, the story bogs down and Hogan appears to be treading water for a while, using filler until the final scenes. At the end we have a fast shoot-out, but the real resolution is achieved with talking. Not really a hot way to end a western pulp yarn.

This story, like Savage Range, seems to be an attempt to jam old world pulp values (fast action, twisting plot, characterization “lite”) into the emerging new world western (thoughtful realism). It doesn’t work.

Much of the story is good. That’s when it’s just an old-fashioned western about a man accused of a crime he didn’t commit and a young girl in need of help.

Bloodless Short Novel Anemic

Savage Range
by Lee E. Wells
Ace Double 75150
1961


Although the cover cries out “Massacre was his birthright,” Savage Range is relatively bloodless. In fact, an Indian uprising is prevented. In real life the Sioux uprising would happen, but Wells finds a way to avoid it, at least for the time being.

Former army lieutenant Dan Mitchell is recruited by his commanding officer to help rout out corruption in the Indian Agency system. It appears that graft is running rampant in Broken Bow and Fort Adams and that the Indian agent and fort sutler are cheating the Indians on the reservation. They’ve also taken over all commerce in town, violently putting down all efforts to set up competing stores. One of those competing stores belonged to Mitchell’s sister and brother-in-law. They were murdered in an attack made to look like a Sioux raiding party.

Working under cover, Mitchell heads into town, gains work with the criminals, and begins ferreting out the illegal activities. He meets the regional head of the syndicate, Millard Fleming, and his not-so-pure lady friend, Janey Lang. He puts down a few toughs, gets in tight with the crooked sutler, and starts tearing the syndicate apart from the inside. He eventually gets them on the run. Meantime Mitchell works with Stone Nose, a Sioux leader, to head off the uprising.

Savage Range whips through its 40,000 words, like an old pulp story. And while I’ve said that western stories should be short and pack a punch (and leave out all the useless and aimless backstories), this particular tale could have used a little more fleshing out. It is still, though, a pretty good yarn and it carries you along quickly.

What is missing are some of the details in characterization and character relationships. Plot, like in the old pulps, is king, and this is clear and driving. But Wells doesn’t really build much on Mitchell’s relationship with his sister and brother-in-law – their death being the seminal motivation for Mitchell taking on the corrupt Indian agency system should have power. There is a moment when he runs up against the man who killed his sister. Mitchell kills the man, then moves on. There is no emotional impact to the scene, and it does not color the rest of the story.

There is an attempt to graft romance onto this yarn. There are a couple of women in the tale: one a good bad girl, the other just a good girl. In other stories there might have been suspense about which woman would end up with Mitchell. Here, there is no doubt; Mitchell wants nothing to do with either of them. But the author has kept a secret from us readers. He never let on that Mitchell wanted the good girl until he suddenly asks her to marry him. She seems to have been in on this secret affair, because she’s really not surprised by Mitchell’s declaration.

This is what keeps Savage Range from rising above its dashed-off origins. If the author had kept the tale to its core (and more probably if the editor hadn’t insisted on shoehorning a romance into the plot, despite the story’s lack of depth and development) it would have been a much better read.

Easy to Fall Into This Trap

A Trap for Sam Dodge
by Harry Whittington
Ace Double F-103

Harry Whittington may be better known today as a suspense and crime writer, but he was the author of many westerns, too. In fact, his first novel was a western, published in 1946. Suspense and drama, though, seem to inform the western in this review, A Trap for Sam Dodge, one side of an Ace double combined with Lee Floren’s High Thunder, both from 1961.

Dodge is a tightly-written potboiler in which Whittington seems to have mislaid most of his pronouns. This gives the story a clipped sound that’s almost a parody of the noir style of fiction written by Hammett and Chandler, two writers to whose dark throne French critics insist Whittington is the natural heir.

We get a little more than half-way into the story before we understand just what trap has been set for Dodge. It turns out he set it himself, rather stupidly, in a vain attempt to draw out the killer of his friend and rival for the affections of Sarah, an unworthy woman.

Dodge had been a marshal in a small western town. A bit of a wild place it had been and Sam had had to get tough. Lot of people liked him, though, because he was honest and straight. He had a great friend, too, the sheriff, named Miles. The two vied for the affections of Sarah and when Sam lost out he left town in a huff to start up a small ranch.

Now Miles is dead, murdered in the dark of night by someone who could outdraw him. No mean feat, that. When Sam comes back for the funeral, no one is glad to see him. He gets the cold stare and lots of veiled warnings to leave town. He’s of a mind to go but the marshal in him gets the best of his common sense. He starts asking questions.

Along the way we discover that Sam and Miles were still friends, even though they hadn’t seen each other much over the past couple of years. The town thinks Sam left because of losing Sarah to Miles. That isn’t so. Miles, that pillar of the community and stalwart of the little guy, was on the take. He was in deep. He had ridden out to Sam only days before he died, wanting to be shed of the graft and corruption but needing Sam to help him. Sam had refused. The town in his estimation was lost.

When Sam doesn’t leave town after the funeral, he is beaten. Later he puts on a show of drinking and of being drunk. He brags about the speed of his gun and that he could have taken down Miles, and maybe even did. This lands him in a jackpot as, instead of drawing out the killer, he angers the town and they put him on trial. While he beats the wrap he still has to uncover the real killer and the true power behind the greedy men in town. A display of quick guns ends things, but no one is happy with the outcome.

This story appears to be an original, and no more than about 40,000 words. It suffers in the telling because of it. Whittington’s disuse of pronouns is more hacking than trimming. Often, the meaning of his sentences are unclear. Part of this, no doubt, can be blamed on the required length, the swiftness of publication, and by editor mistakes. Regardless of who's to blame, it takes from the book’s enjoyment.

The shortness of the story doesn’t allow Whittington to set up much in the way of subplots, love interest, or the development of suspects. He barrels through letting raw emotion and mood and the overriding question of why Miles was killed carry the story. This is something that Whittington did exceedingly well, and he doesn’t disappoint here. There is a scene where Sam is put on trial, though, that drags the story a bit. When this is over, though, the novel races to its inevitable and largely satisfactory conclusion.

This Power Valley a Puff of Smoke

Powder Valley Pay-Off
by Peter Field
Bantam Books No. 104

Getting an early paperback in very good condition is a rare treat. Published in 1947, Powder Valley Pay-Off is a reprint from its 1941 publication (presumably in hardcover) by William Morrow and Company. The lineage of the “Peter Field” books is difficult to navigate. Luckily it’s been done by pulp aficionado Al Tonik, a frequent contributor to the pulp western Yahoo newsgroup. He very kindly offered information on this book and passed along a bibliography of Powder Valley/Peter Field books.

He writes: “According to my records all the Powder Valley stories appeared in hard cover first [for $2]. Then some were reprinted in Columbia pulps about a year [after hardcover publication]. Pulps as Blue Ribbon Western, Western Action, Real Western, Double Action Western, and Complete Cowboy. Powder Valley Pay-Off was published by Morrow in 1941 and in Blue Ribbon Western in the April 1942 issue.”

The reviewd copy is the 104th book published by Bantam, in July 1947, for the whopping cost of 25¢. It was written by one of the series' many writers, Davis Dresser, known for his Brett Halliday mystery series which he farmed out fairly often to yet other writers.

Passing along a bit of personal knowledge, Al wrote: “Nelson Nye told me that Davis Dresser came to him and begged him to take the Powder Valley series from him. Nye refused.”

While Al doesn’t elaborate, it’s hard to imagine Dresser said this in 1941. Pay-Off was his second Peter Field book and the second Powder Valley story. He would write at least 13 more before handing off the series to interim writer Robert J. Hogan, of G-8 and His Battle Aces fame, and Powder Valley powerhouse Lucien W. Emerson, who wrote more than half of the tales for a total of 44 novels.

Reading Pay-Off does not put one in mind of Dresser, though. His style is nothing like the terse, hard driving story-telling he used in the best of the Brett Halliday novels. It’s a strange combination of B-movie oater dialog and the melodramatic prose of Zane Grey or B. M. Bower. There’s a lot of “Don’t worry, Dad. We’ll be (gulp) just fine until you get back.” You can just see the kid biting the back of his tiny clenched hand.

Powder Valley Pay-Off tells the story of a settled-down Pat Stevens wrestling with the need to put himself in danger in order to save his two saddle pards, Sam Sloan and One-Eyed Ezra. The duo have gotten themselves into trouble; they've been accused of murder and are on the run. Of course it’s a set-up, but Pat has to dodge bullets, pass himself off as a cattle inspector, and track down killers before his friends can ride free once more.

Except for the overblown prose and the goofy dialog, this isn’t a bad story. But it seems like a transitional tale, something that’s making its way away from the 1910s and into the 1940s. Dresser certainly had had enough experience writing before this novel, and had in fact written half a dozen westerns, including a few Rio Kid stories (although these may not have been the better known pulp series). So one is left to assume he chose this style, perhaps to differentiate from Mike Shayne, which was just taking off. Still, it’s a quick read and fun, if you don’t examine it too closely.

Dark Tones Improve Noir "Alegre"

Rancho Alegre
by John D. Nesbitt
Leisure Books, July 2005


Nesbitt’s Rancho Alegre is another first person western. It’s a mystery, too, like the previously reviewed Lawless (by Ed Gorman). But where Gorman’s Lawless is a Mickey Spillane/Carroll John Daly sharp wrap to the jaw, Nesbitt takes the softer, Chandleresque approach.

Reading Rancho Alegre is like falling slowly into a dark pit. Make no mistake, this is a noir mystery set, apparently, in the early 20th Century. There are no airplanes. Men still carry guns on their hips. Horse travel is still the way of the West. But there is the mention of an automobile, brief as it is.

Nesbitt’s hero, Jimmy Clevis, is not completely jaded. He’s no Travis McGee. Nor is he a hard shell closet romantic like Philip Marlowe. He’s different from the normal mold, far more rural than urban. It’s that twist, among others, that elevates this story.

Clevis is down and out. He’s not working right now, and not too worried about it. There’s a Mexican girl in town he’s sort of sweet on, but he doesn’t break a sweat over her. He gets a message from a local swell named Milton Earlywine that there’s a job for the asking. Clevis talks to the man, but doesn’t like the setup. Earlywine has had a saddle stolen and he’d like it back. No, he can’t go to the sheriff. He just needs a man to get it back. The whole thing sounds shifty and Jimmy doesn’t want to take the job.

Coincidentally there’s another man looking for help. His name is Tull and he’s looking for the illegitimate son he fathered years ago. He’s got a line on the boy but needs help in pinpointing the now grown man and bringing him word of his heritage. Jimmy likes Tull a lot better than Earlywine so he takes the job. But before he can leave town he finds out that Earlywine has been murdered.

The trail leads south, where Jimmy captures the attention of some local toughs. He also runs into his Mexican sweetheart who coincidentally is travelling, and the two make plans to meet on their way back home. Along the way Jimmy uncovers some tawdry facts and goes toe-to-toe with those hoping to keep the secrets hidden. Thematically, this is a classic noir story.

Specifically, Nesbitt borrows a great deal from Raymond Chandler. Early on there is a scene that recalls an early moment from The Big Sleep. Nesbitt’s hero meets with an old man (Earlywine) whose enormous weight makes him invalid. The scene takes place in the man’s home. It is hot and humid and Jimmy sweats as he listens to the old man ask him to do some less than savory work. These pages live in the shadows of Marlowe meeting the General.

But it is more than this one scene that calls Chandler to mind. Although not a private detective, Jimmy operates in that capacity. The first person narrative is leisurely, its edges rounded and full of character. Things take place almost in slow motion. Early on you can see the train wreck coming but there’s really nothing you can do to stop it. And Nesbitt’s hero is so wrapped up in it that he can’t see what’s right in front of his face. This is very much in the style of the classic noir stories, of men trapped in an ever-spiraling disaster, none of it of their own making. The story and the writing draw the reader in and drive right over that cliff along with the hero. Nesbitt rarely spends time on things that are not worthwhile. Although not as sharply written as Chandler’s Marlowe, the character of Jimmy comes out as distinct and interesting.

Nesbitt builds a pretty good mystery. There are several twists and turns, and one or two events that are a surprise (i.e., his “General” getting killed early on, something that is used with other events to cast a poor light on Jimmy). But he has trouble ending the story. His McGuffin – a saddle with a secret message – is never fully explained, even though it ties prominently into the death of a couple of men. Nesbitt offers no final twist. He so readily uses the Chandler model right up to the end that the finale feels simple and empty.

Chandler would have used a femme fatale-style ending, as he did in The Big Sleep. Nesbitt has the opportunity here but does not use it, deciding instead to intimate further growth in a romantic relationship. While this has its merits, we’re not even treated to a final kiss between the two characters, something that he had been built up as the story progressed. It would have been a nice touch and might have given the story an actual ending.

Nesbitt also does not have a final scene with Jimmy’s employer. Jimmy is supposed to report to Tull about his illegitimate son but decides to blow it off with a letter, which seems somewhat cowardly and rushed. A final scene – one showing the effect of the death of his sons (the recognized heir as well has the illegitimate one) on his employer – would have been far more satisfying than how Nesbitt ended the story.

Still, Nesbitt’s story is excellent and worth reading. For the most part the mystery holds. And when things become obvious you still have the smooth writing and captivating characters to carry you through to the end.

Ruthlessly Good "Lawless"

Lawless
by Ed Gorman
Berkley, May 2000

I have a personal bias regarding first person stories. I generally don’t care for them outside the mystery genre. I’ve read a number of western stories in the first person and haven’t cared for any of them, which only served to reinforce my bias. But Gorman’s Lawless is a different animal – though, after reading the next review, not unique.

Gorman’s prose is hard hitting, spare, direct, unrelenting and unforgiving. He squares up and raps you in the mouth with his story. He tells Lawless in short, declarative sentences that give you information without the swell-headed, don’t-I-know-so-much-more-than- you hyperbole that too many writers use. His dialogue is clipped and full of information. It keeps the plot moving. He also breaks up the story into sections that makes the reading go faster.

His characters, though, provide the most drive. You want to know what will happen to these people. Much of the time the plot turns in the direction you expect, however, removing some of the tension from the story. Still, there are a couple of twists that are interesting, and the end comes suddenly, although not without warning. You just don’t know if the good guys will pull it off in the end, mainly because Gorman can be remorseless in his slaughter. The book could easily have ended with a less positive finish.

Lawless is clearly cut in the noir mold. But rather than have a tough guy hero, Gorman has created a somewhat childish and selfish dreamer who is driven to help not for the Chandleresque urban knight reasons but for his own lascivious and self-aggrandizing reasons. Sam Conagher falls madly in love with wealthy heiress Nora Rutledge, sister to the pompous and cruel Cal Rutledge. Their father is wound pretty tight and very concerned about appearances.

Conagher is just out of prison. As a youth he had fancy ideas to become an outlaw, to rob trains. This is in the late 1800s so his chance of success wasn’t all that high. Now that he’s out he wants to go straight. He finds an old cell mate, Earl, who’s become the law in a small town and drops in. Earl has found God and preaches to all who will listen. Also in this town is Callie, a former whore whom Conagher loved, but never trusted. She’s with a dimwitted fellow named Ham, who’s girlishly high voice leads to fisticuffs on a regular basis. Ham is big enough to handle himself.

Conagher’s hopes for a romance with Nora don’t go well. The father looks down on him, the brother Cal is derisive and causes trouble for him. Amid all of this, Conagher gets wind of a plot to kidnap Nora for ransom. Now Sam feels he has a chance to redeem himself and win the girl. He can put down the kidnappers and rescue the damsel. Greedily, he keeps the knowledge to himself and tries to learn the details of the plot. Instead of circumstances driving Sam down a dark alley, though, as would happen in most noir stories, it’s Conagher’s own childish dreams, his greed, and his growing distrust of his old friend Earl that leads him into trouble. He knows Callie is in on the plot, and wonders if Earl’s Bible-thumping is just a cover for darker deeds.

The plot turns, though, when Callie is killed, and then Nora’s brother is kidnapped. Things aren’t following the neat plan Conagher imagined. They’re more gruesome and convoluted. Sam is confused and way over his head. Eventually, he’s framed for Cal Rutlege’s death, and Ham’s death, too. To everyone, it’s a falling out among theives. A lynch mob is about to settle the matter when Sam escapes, with Earl’s help.

Still, Conagher doesn’t understand that he’s not smart enough to figure out the very dark plot. He returns to Nora in hopes of setting things right, but he can’t. Nora has masterminded all of the death and destruction in order to get control of her father’s estate. Everyone has been her pawn. Captured in her house, Sam is about to meet his fate at the end of a rope when he convinces Rutledge about the truth of his daughter. A decisive man, Rutledge ends the misery – for Nora and for himself.

There are flaws in the book. Most of the plot twists seem telegraphed. There’s an obviousness about all of it. Conagher is not a particularly likeable hero. He’s kind of stupid and selfish and childish. His ideas about romance are very silly.

Gorman’s writing, however, powers the book over and through any obstacles. It reads quickly. It’s full of action. The characters are fairly well-rounded (even if some of their traits seem fabricated for the sake of lending an odd quality to the story) and drawn with a skilled hand. The dialog is sharp, almost painful in its spareness. And Gorman – skilled professional that he is – avoids nearly all the pitfalls of writing in the first person. All in all, Lawless is a good read and well worth the time.

Easy to Extricate from Simple "Trapp"

Trapp’s Mountain
by Robert J. Randisi
Leisure Books, August 2005

A friend critiqued my first, deservedly unsold western many years ago. It was called The Wide River. His first, and major comment was, “Where’s the river?” I told him it was metaphorical, that the river was a gulf to be crossed on the way to the main character’s growth and greater understanding. That didn’t matter much to the critic. He still wanted to know where was the damned river.
Perhaps Randisi was using the mountain in the title of this novel as a metaphor, too, but by the end of it I still wanted to know where was the mountain. Of course, the unnamed mountain within the Rockies is ubiquitous. The main character, Trapp, speaks of it at every opportunity. Eventually, we do get to the mountain for a few uninteresting pages in the epilogue. But the payoff is unsatisfactory, and the reader is left with the obvious question.

No doubt, Randisi meant the mountain to represent Trapp’s struggles through a life made unfair by cruel and powerful men. But you sort of have to guess at all of that and fill in a lot of holes yourself. Randisi doesn’t come out and tell you this, nor does he have Trapp develop an inner dialog that would reveal such (necessary and yet sadly absent) depth. Instead, Trapp expends a great deal of passive energy, and time, in a Sisiphysian effort to get back to his mountain, which to him symbolizes an ideal.

Trapp’s Mountain is a thin book – thin on ideas, not pages. Randisi fills many pages (most of them, in fact) with pedantic dialogue that does little to serve the advancement of the plot. Much of it rehashes earlier conversations. It is a story told mostly in dialogue, with textbook bad lines like, “Well, here comes our friend now.” This is not how a seasoned writer like Randisi is supposed to write.

It is a quick read, though. His sentences are short and clear, and the reader’s eyes virtually fly across the page. Mainly because there’s nothing on which to light.

Randisi tells his story out of order, which is fine. Filling in backstory as you go is the best way to keep a story moving at a quick pace. But too often he uses lengthy flashbacks – often 10 or 20 pages – to tell in dialogue where a paragraph or two of prose would have sufficed. It would make sense to spend this amount of time if Randisi had used it well. He doesn’t. Although the perspective or the time period shifts, Randisi does never varies his tone or style or atmosphere. Everything is told simply, with no effort to build much in the way of suspense or to give the action an air of drama. It reads like a shorthand version of a story, with everything that makes reading fun taken out of it.

The story is simple enough. John Henry Trapp has tracked down and killed the two men responsible for killing his Indian common law wife. One of the murderers has a powerful father. Trapp is himself convicted of murder and sentenced to 25 years in prison. When he gets out, all he wants to do is get back to his mountain. In short order he quite conveniently falls into a woman’s bed, a pile of money, and the company of a pleasant gun-for-hire. They have a number of adventures that have nothing to do with the mountain, are chased by a bounty hunter hired by the powerful and still grieving father, and finally run afowl of some Comanches. They get away from this penultimate trouble rather neatly (and conveniently) only to have a final showdown with the bounty hunter.

We never really get inside the characters. They are all of them one-dimensional. All of them speak grammatically corrected English, with hardly an “ain’t” or a “wal” or a “shore” to be found. Even the writer’s own character doesn’t come to the surface. The book is entirely devoid of personality. Of course, Randisi can’t help take a PC shot at the military when, at the end of the novel he describes an off-camera military raid: “[The soldiers] had found the camp and killed themselves some Indians – among them, Trapp was quite sure, some women and children …” But even this is a watery indictment and feels obligatorily tossed in for no reason other than to say how bad the bluecoats were toward the Indians.

Some might read this book and recommend it as light reading. It’s far worse than that, though. Trapp’s Mountain is completely empty and not worth your time. Randisi is better than this; he has been better than this, and hopefully will be again.

"Thirteen" Unlucky for Smith

The Thirteenth Bullet
by Cotton Smith
Pocket Star Books, February 2004

There is a good story buried deep within Cotton Smith’s The Thirteenth Bullet. The problem is he covers it up with so much empty text and inane dialogue that the reader cannot find it.

The title of the story refers to one of a thousand superstitions adhered to by the main character, Texas Ranger “Thunder” Kileen. Kileen and his nephew, fellow ranger Time Carlow, are on the hunt for notorious badman Silver Mallow and his gang. They’ve captured eight of Mallow’s men and are holding them in the jail in Bennett, Texas. The gang comes into town and routs the rangers, killing two of them. Kileen and Carlow escape, barely with their lives. They return some months later, after Carlow heals, and dish out some justice. Mallow and the remnants of his gang head for the hills. But that’s only a ruse. The rangers relax a little, planning to follow the outlaws come the following morning. Mallow and his gang, however, sneak back into town for a final, deadly showdown.

That’s the whole book right there. One hundred and fourteen words. The rest of the novel, approximately 90,000 words, is spent on barrels full of nonsense.

Kileen is a great believer in superstition. Over the course of more than 300 pages the character relates upwards of a hundred distinct supernatural beliefs. It becomes tedious and constantly interrupts the action. And it adds nothing to the plot. The thirteenth bullet is a bizarre concern for Kileen, who believes that that shell will jam when levered into a rifle’s action. When loading a rifle he lines up the bullets to be fed into the weapon’s ammunition tube and passes over the thirteenth cartridge. This specific ritual occurs several times in the book yet it never plays an important part in the story’s outcome.

Smith employs bigotry as a driving force in the book. The town of Bennett – despite the fact that Carlow and some of his fellow Rangers grew up there and are trying to protect the citizens – despises the Irish. Of course, this was true to some extent in the old west. In fact, every ethnic group that has come to America has suffered bigotry at one time or another. In Smith’s story the racism is palpable. In fact, the town leads the Rangers into several traps that results in the death of two lawmen. Yet by story’s end, with little in the way of motivation, the town switches sides and rides with the remaining Rangers to rout the outlaws.

This all seems gratuitous. Used more as a plot point than as social commentary, the bigotry feels forced and unnecessary. Also, the extreme use of written brogue (“Sure’n ya know wot oy mean!”) and the nonsense of superstitions stereotypes Kileen in a way that does not support the author’s indictment of bigotry in the old west.

And there’s more. Smith takes every opportunity to digress, either to discuss more superstitions or to reveal something from the past. While digressions help round out a story in the way of character and plot, Smith’s use of it only serves to drag the story down and kill the action. There is absolutely no economy in his writing here.

Dialog is mundane and often expository. Smith employs none of the mechanics for building suspense or intrigue. There is virtually no tension in the book. Later on he decides that what’s missing is a romance. So he invents one out of whole cloth and instantly has our romantic lead (Carlow) fall head over heals in love. Smith can spend chapters on discussing superstitions and more pages on characters deciding where they will eat, but something as important as two characters falling in love takes place over the course of a couple of paragraphs.

Cotton Smith is a better writer than this. He knows the west, modern and historical, and can write about it with ease. He’s a scholarly gentleman with a lot of talent. He could have gone with a story the delved into the depths of bigotry in the old west, or simply used his pulp-inspired main plot and written a straight out action story (this latter would receive my vote, if we’re casting ballots). However, he does neither and misses the mark by far with this, the first in a (presumably to be short) series about Texas Rangers. If The Thirteenth Bullet is still on the bookshelves don’t bother to pick it up.