Review: Boss of the Chisholm Trail - Guy L. Maynard

Guy L. Maynard wrote thirteen stories starring red-headed, gunslinging trail boss Flame Burns for the pulp WILD WEST WEEKLY in 1936, ’37, and ’38. But Flame also starred in BOSS OF THE CHISHOLM TRAIL, a Big Little Book published in 1939. Most of you are probably familiar with Big Little Books, those small, thick, chunky juvenile novels that featured text on the left-hand pages and illustrations on the right-hand pages. That wasn’t always the case—there are a couple of places in this book where text appears on both pages—but for the most part the books are about half as long as they appear to be, and the print is pretty big, so BOSS OF THE CHISHOLM TRAIL is more of a novella than a novel.

The question is, did Maynard adapt it from any of his Flame Burns stories in WILD WEST WEEKLY? That certainly seems possible. Most of the Flame Burns pulp stories also feature Billy the Kid as a character, and in BOSS OF THE CHISHOLM TRAIL, Flame meets Billy for the first time, suggesting that this Big Little Book may have been taken from “Trail Pardners”, Flame’s debut novelette in the February 29, 1936 issue of WILD WEST WEEKLY. Not having a copy of that issue, I can’t check for sure.

But what about BOSS OF THE CHISHOLM TRAIL, you ask? Is it any good? Well, I enjoyed it quite a bit, for whatever that’s worth. As the book opens, Flame has just arrived in Santa Fe with a trail herd he had to take over and bring in when the regular trail boss was killed. This is the first time Flame has acted as trail boss, but it won’t be the last. He soon meets the famous rancher known as “Old Man” Chisholm, whose bodyguard and closest ally is Billy the Kid. Chisholm hires Flame to ramrod a trail drive from the Texas Panhandle to Abilene.

This is as good a place as any to mention that Maynard totally mixes up Jesse Chisholm, who laid out the route that came to be known as the Chisholm Trail, and John Chisum, the New Mexico rancher who was both friend and enemy to Billy the Kid at different times. However, is strict historical accuracy all that important in a book like this? Probably not.

Flame sets out to deliver Chisholm’s cattle to Abilene, but trouble lurks along the way in the person of the evil Whiskey Dick Slavens and his gang of rustlers. Flame has a personal run-in with Slavens even before leaving Santa Fe, so the varmint has a grudge against our hero to start with. Stampedes and gunfights ensue as Flame tries to meet the challenges of his first real job as a trail boss.

Despite being aimed at a juvenile audience, BOSS OF THE CHISHOLM TRAIL is no namby-pamby, “nobody dies” kid’s book. On the contrary, guns blaze a lot, and hombres both good and bad get ventilated on a regular basis. The violence may have been toned down a little, but this is a pretty hardboiled yarn. Obviously, kids in the Thirties were expected to be tough enough to take it. The story races along and comes to a satisfying conclusion.

My copy is missing the spine and is in fairly rough shape, but the text is all there and easy to read. The cover is truly ugly. The interior illustrations are by Ralph Hitchcock, and while most of them are pretty crude, some are not bad and do a good job of capturing the action. I’m not a collector or a regular reader of Big Little Books, although I read a lot of them as a kid when they were easier to find. But when one comes my way, I’m not going to hesitate to pick it up if it looks interesting.

I had read one of the later Flame Burns stories in WILD WEST WEEKLY and thought it was okay but nothing more than that. I think I actually enjoyed this version more. It’s an oddity, sure, but an entertaining one.

Movies I've Missed Until Now: The Duke (2020)

The last time I did a movie post, a couple of weeks ago, I wrote about a film called THE DUCHESS. So what movie am I writing about today? THE DUKE, of course. Purely a coincidence, and other than both films being British, they couldn’t be more different.

THE DUKE is set in 1961 and is about an older Englishman who’s a failed playwright and has a hard time holding down a job. His long-suffering wife works as a maid to keep the family together. One son works building boats, and the other is a criminal. All the old guy wants to do is watch TV, but the British government requires people to buy a license to own a television, and as a matter of principle, our protagonist won’t pay it. (Wait, you have to buy a license to watch TV? That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard!)

Anyway, the British government is really proud of a portrait of the Duke of Wellington painted by Goya that they’ve just bought to keep it out of the hands of an uncouth American, so our rabble-rousing protagonist steals it from the museum where it’s being displayed and holds it for ransom to raise money to buy TV licenses for elderly people and war veterans. A heartwarming mix of comedy and drama ensues, and as a bonus, not everything turns out to be as it appears at first.

Despite my rather snarky tone above, THE DUKE is a wonderful movie that took me completely by surprise. It’s based on a true story, and it has great characters, nice plot twists, and top-notch acting all around led by Jim Broadbent and Helen Mirren as the husband and wife. I really enjoyed this movie. Nothing flashy, no pyrotechnics or special effects, just a solid story well told. Highly recommended.

Now Available: Johnny Colt #2: No Tears in Hell

The second exciting adventure in a brand new Western series from James Reasoner!

The path to justice winds through the Gateway to Hell. Fourteen soldiers are dead, the shipment of rifles they were guarding is gone, and those responsible are hiding behind whiskey, cards, and dirty money. Johnny Colt arrives in Harker City, where nobody asks too many questions—unless they're prepared to pay for the answer. He is supposed to track down the killers and uncover the truth, but first, he needs to make them believe he is one of them.

Every man he meets seems meaner than the last, and a knife might be hiding behind every pretty smile in town. No Tears in Hell is a gritty Western about stolen guns, border bloodshed, and a Texas Ranger risking everything under an outlaw’s name. On the border, the truth often comes out with a gunshot!

(I realize I'm hardly an unbiased observer here, but I think this novel is a really good Western yarn with lots of interesting characters and plenty of fast-paced action. I had a great time writing it, and I hope many of you will have a great time reading it. It's available now on Amazon in very affordable e-book and paperback editions. I don't promote my stuff often, but if you've been thinking about buying this one, today would be a great day to do it. Release day sales always bump up the Amazon rankings, which help a lot.)

Review: Ezra Flint, U.S. Marshal: Gunfighter's Grave - Paul L. Thompson and Scott McCrea

I read one of Scott McCrea’s Ezra Flint novels a while back and enjoyed it quite a bit, so I wanted to try another book in the series. The most recent one, GUNFIGHTER’S GRAVE, finds Flint teaming up with another U.S. Marshal, Shorty Thompson, the star of his own series of novels from Paul L. Thompson, who collaborates with McCrea on this novel.

The pair of lawmen prove to be a very potent duo as they set out on the trail of a man who just may be Billy the Kid, although as far as the world knows, the notorious outlaw is dead, gunned down in New Mexico by Pat Garrett. Flint and Shorty, who are old friends, are out to rescue a young woman they both consider a niece/little sister, who has recently married this mysterious stranger who may be one of the West’s most deadly killers.

Thompson and McCrea spin a really entertaining yarn in GUNFIGHTER’S GRAVE, a story that brings in historical characters such as Dirty Dave Rudabaugh and Pat Garrett himself, retired now from being a lawman. The plot and the writing remind me a little of Bob Randisi’s long-running and legendary series The Gunsmith as the book races along in a blend of Old West history and fictional action.

What really makes GUNFIGHTER’S GRAVE stand out, though, are the characters, especially the two protagonists. I already knew I liked Ezra Flint, a brooding, stoic philosopher who enforces the law while quoting Marcus Aurelius. He always puts me in mind of John Carradine. I hadn’t encountered Shorty Thompson before, but I’m glad I have now. Small in stature but mighty tough and feisty, he reminds me of a young Bob Steele. What a great series of B-Westerns those would have been, had these books been written ninety years ago.

You can count me as a fan of both series now, and I definitely plan to read more. In the meantime, if you enjoy gritty, fast-paced Western action, I think GUNFIGHTER’S GRAVE is well worth reading. It’s available on Amazon from Dusty Saddle Productions in e-book and paperback editions.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Mammoth Mystery, January 1946

MAMMOTH MYSTERY was a fairly short-lived pulp from Ziff-Davis that put out only a dozen issues in 1945, '46, and '47. The first issue truly was mammoth at 276 pages, but by the second issue--this one--it had shrunk to 178 pages, still pretty hefty by pulp standards. This cover is by an artist named Richard R. Epperly, who's not familiar to me at all. Pretty nice back on that lady, though. The lead novel is by Bruno Fischer, an author whose work I've enjoyed quite a bit. I need to read more by him. Also on hand are Larry Holden (actually Lorenz Heller, many of whose novels have been reprinted by Stark House in recent years), Z-D regular Chester S. Geier, and lesser-known authors Phyllis Dayton and A. Boyd Correll. If you want to check out this issue, a PDF of it can be found here.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Wild West Weekly, March 12, 1938

I don’t own this pulp, but thanks to the kindness of my friend Cullen Gallagher, I was able to read a PDF of its lead novelette, “Feud of the Haunted Corral”, featuring T.W. Ford’s best-known series character Solo Strant, also known as the Silver Kid. The cover on this issue of WILD WEST WEEKLY is by H.W. Scott, and it’s an excellent illustration of the Silver Kid in action.

Solo Strant is a drifting gunfighter. He doesn’t hire out his gun, but he’s quick to pitch in when he sees someone being taken advantage of or an innocent person being threatened. As this yarn opens, that’s what happens when a gang of gun-wolves attacks a small ranch. Solo rides to the rescue, but as it turns out, he may not have done the right thing after all, since it looks like the rancher he rescued may be a murderer!

That’s the first mistake Solo makes in this story, but it’s not the last one. In fact, he seems uncharacteristically prone to making the wrong decisions. But that may have something to do with the extremely complicated plot Ford comes up with, which deals with a generations-long feud between two ranching families, assorted murders, mistaken identities, and the Haunted Corral, which is not a corral at all but rather an area of badlands where folks go in, but they seldom come out alive. The whole “shadow of the past” element in this novelette reminds me of many of Walt Coburn’s novels and stories.

“Feud of the Haunted Corral” is a fast-moving, entertaining story. Solo Strant is a likable protagonist, and I’ve enjoyed every story I’ve read about him. It’s pretty easy to spot the evil mastermind in this one, but that doesn’t take away from the pleasure of reading it. My thanks to Cullen for making that possible.

Elsewhere in this issue are stories by a number of WILD WEST WEEKLY stalwarts. Norman W. Hay, writing under the house-name William A. Todd, contributes a Risky McKee yarn. (All the Risky McKee stories are by Hay, and while William A. Todd is considered a house-name, it’s possible Hay wrote everything under that by-line. We’ll probably never know for sure.) There’s a Calamity Boggs story by Lee Bond. Guy L. Maynard pitches in with a Reckless Blaine story. (There are six Reckless Blaine stories, published in six consecutive issues of WILD WEST WEEKLY. I’d be surprised if Maynard didn’t cobble them together into a fix-up novel, but if he did, I can’t find any record of it.) J. Allan Dunn, Charles M. Martin, and Carl Raht contribute stand-alone stories. This appears to be a very good issue of one of my favorite Western pulps.

Review: Chainlink - Owen Evens (Dudley Dean McGaughey)

A friend of mine recommended this Western novel, so I hunted up a copy and read it. The author, Owen Evens, was actually Dudley Dean McGaughey, one of my favorite hardboiled Western writers, best known under his pseudonym Dean Owen. He also wrote as Dudley Dean, Owen Dudley, Dean McCoy, and Hodge Evens. As far as I know, CHAINLINK is the only novel on which he used the name Owen Evens. It was published as a paperback original by Ballantine in 1957 with a good cover by Mel Crair.

Purely coincidentally, this is the second novel I’ve read this month in which a ranch is named Chainlink. The other was in T.V. Olsen’s RUN TO THE MOUNTAIN. And like the Olsen novel, this CHAINLINK is pretty bleak and grim. In the days following the Civil War, former Union officer Griff Jordan returns to the Big Bend in Texas as the partner of former Confederate Major Milo Clay, who has just bought the Chainlink ranch.

Chainlink formerly belonged to brother and sister Clyde and Lisa Benbow. Clyde has vowed to reclaim the ranch, no matter what it takes, and he’s willing to kill to accomplish that goal. Making him an even more despicable villain, he has feelings for Lisa that are anything but brotherly. Also complicating matters is Major Clay’s niece Maydelle, who’s become the madam of the local whorehouse after being seduced by Clyde Benbow when she was sixteen. And no one in the area knows that Griff fought for the Union despite being a Texan, a secret that would cause plenty of trouble if it ever came out.

It’s a set-up that’s ripe for violence, angst, lust, and tragedy, and McGaughey provides plenty of all of those as Clyde Benbow sets out to take over Chainlink again. But Griff is plenty tough and fast on the draw, so he’s well-matched in this clash with the brutal Benbow and his minions. There’s plenty of gritty action, and as in Roe Richmond’s MONTANA BAD MAN, which I wrote about last week, the sexual elements are surprisingly graphic for a paperback Western published in 1957.

McGaughey was an excellent writer, able to spin a yarn with a relentless pace and interesting, if not always likable, characters. CHAINLINK is a fine example of his work. There was a large print edition in 2001, but other than that it hasn’t been reprinted. Reasonably priced copies of both editions can be found on-line. If you’re a fan of hardboiled Westerns, I recommend it and any of the other books by McGaughey, under all his pseudonyms.

Review: The Long Vendetta - Clifton Adams

Buck Coyle is a former race car driver, a World War II vet who was the commander of a tank crew, and the owner of a successful body shop and garage in a small city. He’s a widower, his wife (also a race car driver) having been killed in a crash on the track a year earlier. But he has his successful business and a beautiful new girlfriend he intends to propose to. It’s a pretty good life.

Until somebody hires a hit man to kill Buck.

That’s the setup of THE LONG VENDETTA by Clifton Adams, the second book in the recent double volume from Stark House reprinting two of Adams’ crime novels. From there it’s full-tilt suspense and action as Buck, who is also the narrator of this novel, tries to discover who wants him dead. Sometimes he works with the police lieutenant assigned to the case, but at times, circumstances force Buck to strike out on his own. One thing is pretty sure: the origins of this vendetta go all the way back to the war and a tragedy that occurred during that conflict. Will Buck figure out what’s going on, though, in time to save his life and the life of his girlfriend?

THE LONG VENDETTA was published originally in hardcover by Avalon Books in 1963 under the pseudonym Jonathan Gant. Adams, who is one of my favorite Western authors, wrote only five crime novels, and Stark House has now reprinted all of them. This one is a great yarn with a likable protagonist. It barrels along to a final showdown that features some real white-knuckle writing from Adams. His background serving in the Tank Corps in both North Africa and Europe gives the story a gritty authenticity. For what it's worth, I figured out the big twist before the end, but it took me a while.

This edition features a fine introduction by Eric Compton, as I mentioned when I reviewed the other novel included in it, THE VERY WICKED, and that intro just makes this volume even more worthwhile. It’s available in e-book and paperback editions on Amazon, and I think it’s excellent and well worth reading.

Memorial Day

Many of the pulps had military-themed covers during World War II, such as this one by Rafael De Soto, and some of the stories in this issue of ARGOSY are war-related, too, judging by their titles: "Armchair Admiral No. 2" by Fletcher Pratt, "WACS, Macs and Warlocks" by Theodore Roscoe, "Always Victorious" by Jacland Marmur, "Red Sun Over Bengal" by Kenneth Perkins, "Flight to Nowhere" by Leslie T. White, "Hell Afloat" by Eustace L. Adams, and "Somali Contraband" by E. Hoffmann Price. I don't own this issue, so I can't check those stories to make sure they're actually war yarns, but they sound like it. I'm old enough to remember when Memorial Day was on May 31, no matter what day of the week it fell on, but I don't want to be too much of a curmudgeon and complain about how they've gone to moving holidays around.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: North-West Romances, Summer 1941

Nothing like a Norman Saunders cover on an issue of NORTH-WEST ROMANCES. The two go together perfectly. This issue features a story by one of my favorite authors, Frederick Nebel (a reprint from a 1932 issue of ACTION STORIES), as well as yarns by William Byron Mowery, Ralph R. Perry, Owen Finbar (who was really A. DeHerries Smith, who wrote a lot of stories for the Northerns under his own name), Dan O'Rourke (who was also A. DeHerries Smith), Reg Dinsmore, Evan M. Post, and house-name John Starr (quite possibly A. DeHerries Smith, too). I love Northerns and ought to read more of them.