A Rough Edges Rerun Review: Arizona Guns - William MacLeod Raine

With some authors, you can be aware of their work for years, even decades, without ever reading any of it. That’s the way it’s been for me with William MacLeod Raine. If you’re like me and practically grew up in used bookstores during the Sixties and Seventies, you saw plenty of paperback Westerns by Raine. While he was never as popular as Zane Grey, Max Brand, or Louis L’Amour, Raine was prolific and a strong presence in the Western field for many years. Now, of course, he’s barely remembered, and based on ARIZONA GUNS, the first of his novels I’ve read, he deserves to be not only remembered but read.

Born in England in 1871, Raine moved to the American West ten years later and lived through much of the time period about which he wrote. Like Walt Coburn and another English immigrant, Fred East (who wrote as Tom West), Raine was an authentic Westerner with experience as a cowboy before he became a writer. ARIZONA GUNS was originally published in 1919 by Houghton Mifflin under the title A MAN FOUR-SQUARE. There were at least two paperback reprints under the title ARIZONA GUNS, which despite having a classic B-Western sound to it, isn’t appropriate at all. Not one bit of the novel takes place in Arizona, and the only connection is that one of the characters mentions having gone there.

Instead, nearly all the book is set in New Mexico Territory, in the fictional Washington County. If you’re sharp enough to realize that there’s a real county in New Mexico named after a famous president, you’ll have a pretty good idea where this story is going. Yep, this is another fictionalized version of the Billy the Kid saga, with the “Washington County War” taking the place of the real-life Lincoln County War. In Raine’s version, the young hero is named Jim Clanton. After growing up somewhere in the Appalachians and being involved in a feud there, Clanton goes west in search of his enemies who have fled the mountains. He winds up joining a cattle drive up the Pecos, fights outlaws and Indians, becomes friends with a cowboy named Billie Prince, meets up with his old enemies, makes new enemies, romances a couple of beautiful young women, and eventually winds up on the wrong side of the law. By this time, Clanton’s friend Billie Prince has become a lawman, making him the Pat Garrett stand-in for this story, and when Clanton is accused of murdering one of the local cattlemen, Prince has to form a posse and go after him.

Raine veers off from history in various places, so the story winds up being only loosely based on the Lincoln County War. Because of this, he’s able to throw some nice twists into the plot, especially where various romantic triangles are concerned. Romance plays a big part in this book, as was common in Westerns of the time period, especially the bestsellers authored by Zane Grey. ARIZONA GUNS reminds me quite a bit of Grey’s work, in fact, although it’s not nearly as flowery and melodramatic. Raine slips in a dark undertone to an otherwise happy ending, too, which sets it apart from Grey’s novels and the other popular Westerns of the period. The writing is a little old-fashioned in places (what else would you expect from a book written ninety years ago?), but it holds up well, the style tough and spare for the most part.

I’ve always liked Zane Grey’s plots, and when he finally got around to writing action scenes, he produced some corkers, but I also find it hard to wade through the long-winded prose in his books. If you’re the same way, I think you’d enjoy William MacLeod Raine’s novels, at least based on this one. I definitely intend to read more of them.

(This time, for a change, when I said I was going to read more by an author, I actually did. Since this post first appeared on December 12, 2008, I've read four or five more novels by William MacLeod Raine and enjoyed all of them. You can find several different e-book editions of ARIZONA GUNS/A MAN FOUR-SQUARE on Amazon for very affordable prices if you'd care to check it out.)

Review: Doomsday Mesa - Chap O'Keefe (Keith Chapman)

DOOMSDAY MESA was published originally by Robert Hale in 1995, making it one of the earliest Chap O’Keefe novels I’ve read. It’s available now in new e-book and paperback editions from Amazon. That’s a great title, and being a long-time fan of the work of Keith Chapman, the veteran writer/editor behind the O’Keefe pseudonym, I was looking forward to this one. It’s safe to say, I wasn’t disappointed.

Chapman spends a little time giving us the back-story of his protagonist Yale Cannon, who, as a young man of somewhat shady character with a reputation as a gunman, joins a wagon train heading west in the days before the Civil War. There’s a budding romance between Cannon and a young woman whose family is traveling with the wagon train, but unfortunate circumstances arise to split them up.

The story then moves ahead a couple of decades to a time when Yale Cannon, a decorated war hero and veteran Deputy U.S. Marshal, arrives in the town of Antelope, Colorado, to pick up a captured outlaw from the jail and take him back to Arizona to face charges there. Of course, things don’t work out that easily. There’s a war brewing between the local ranchers and a religious cult that’s been established on a nearby mesa where there used to be a gold mine. The ranchers believe the followers of the charismatic cult leader are rustling their stock, and they’re prepared to go to any lengths to put a stop to it, including breaking out the owlhoot Cannon’s supposed to pick up and hiring him to run off the settlers on the mesa.

That’s enough for a book right there, but Chapman packs several more plot twists into his book, including a connection to Yale Cannon’s tragic past. He weaves all these strands together until they finally result in an explosive climax and one final, very effective twist.

DOOMSDAY MESA is an excellent traditional Western novel with plenty of action and the interesting, slightly offbeat characters you’ll always find in a Chap O’Keefe novel. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it and give it a solid recommendation for Western fans.

Movies I've Missed Until Now: El Cid (1962)

When I was a kid, my parents had a coffee table book about this movie that included a synopsis of the story, features on many of the actors, and stuff about the production of the movie, illustrated by lots and lots of still photos. How they wound up with this book, I don’t know. I think such volumes were sold as souvenirs in theater lobbies during so-called roadshow engagements, but my parents didn’t go see EL CID in the theater. I don’t think they ever went to an indoor movie theater in my lifetime, only the drive-in up the road a little ways from our house. But I read through that EL CID book many times, since I was already interested in movies and historical fiction. But I’d never actually seen the movie until now.

EL CID is about an actual historical figure, Rodrigo Diaz, who fought to unify Spain and protect it from Moorish invasion in the 11th Century. However, most of what we know about Diaz is a mixture of history, legend, and myth, with much of it based on an epic poem written only fifty years after his death. The movie’s script leans heavily on the legend and myth part, as you’d expect with Charlton Heston playing the character. Also as you’d expect from Hollywood in the early Sixties, almost every role in this movie about Spaniards and Moors is played by an American, an Englishman, or an Italian.

Anyway, as the movie opens, Rodrigo is about to be married to a beautiful young noblewoman played by Sophia Loren, but before the wedding takes place he gets mixed up in some political intrigue. Tragedy and exile ensue. Rodrigo befriends some Spanish Moors who are loyal to the king and gets the name El Cid from them. He works his way back into the king’s favor, and then more political intrigue upsets everything again. Sophia Loren’s character hates him for a while, then loves him again. In between all this scheming, lots of battles against various enemies take place, until finally an army of Moors from North Africa led by Herbert Lom invades Spain, setting up a final epic showdown.

Actually, it’s more like the soap opera stuff takes place in the intervals between battles. Anthony Mann is credited as the director of this movie, but I’d be willing to bet more than half of it was actually helmed by the second unit director, the legendary Yakima Canutt. I’m a long-time fan of Yak’s work as an actor, stuntman, and second unit director, and EL CID looks great. We get scene after scene featuring enormous sets and thousands of extras (most of them Spanish soldiers provided by Generalissimo Francisco Franco, who was not yet dead), and the movie looks great. I love big, elaborate spectacles like this, and there’s something very impressive about knowing what you’re seeing is really there and doesn’t exist just in some computer somewhere. I mean, special effects are great, but they’re not like a thousand guys fighting each other at once.

EL CID is a long movie, a little more than three hours. But I was never bored. There’s enough story to go along with the battles, and the cast does a good job. I’ve always liked Charlton Heston in everything I’ve seen him in. Sophia Loren doesn’t have much to do other than look beautiful, but she’s great at that. Herbert Lom, as usual, is a suitably despicable villain. I had a very good time watching EL CID. If you miss this kind of sweeping epic, as I do, and haven’t seen it, I give it a strong recommendation.

Review: Rex Brandon #1: Death Warriors - Denis Hughes

Sometimes I’m just in the mood for a jungle adventure. In 1951 and ’52, British author Denis Hughes wrote twelve novels under the pseudonym Marco Garon about Rex Brandon, a two-fisted geologist, explorer, and big game hunter, and his adventures in Africa. These were published by a British paperback publisher, and these days, the first six in the series are available as paperbacks and e-books from Bold Venture Press. They’ve been sitting on my Kindle for quite a while, so I figured it was time I read one of them.

The first book in the series, DEATH WARRIORS, finds Rex acting as an agent for the British and French governments. (I assume Rex is British, but you know, I’m not sure it ever says that in the book.) It seems that several years earlier, a geologist named Georg Traski located a deposit of a rare ore called irikum, which is more valuable for making nuclear weapons than uranium. But Traski disappeared somewhere in the jungle, and an expedition sent to look for him, led by another geologist and his beautiful daughter, never came back, either. Now Rex is going in to this dangerous area to locate the irikum deposit and find out what happened to the previous expeditions.

Well, you know with a set up like that, there are going to be plenty of adventures with wild animals (leopards, lions, and a rogue gorilla with an ear for music, in this case), despicable villains, and a madman or two. And so there is. Does it all play out about the way you’d expect? Sure it does. Is getting to all the expected destinations fun? You bet! DEATH WARRIORS has a lot of action, a stalwart protagonist in Rex Brandon, a couple of colorful sidekicks, and a beautiful, competent young woman. All the ingredients for a very entertaining jungle adventure yarn in the grand tradition. If you’re a fan of such things, like I am, I give it a high recommendation, and I look forward to reading the other Rex Brandon novels that are available.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Top-Notch, February 1936

I don't know who painted the cover on this issue of TOP-NOTCH -- Tom Lovell, maybe? -- but it's pretty dramatic. TOP-NOTCH was getting near the end of its long run by this point but was still publishing some very good authors. In this issue are stories by Arthur J. Burks, Major George Fielding-Eliot, William Merriam Rouse, Samuel Taylor, and Robert H. Leitfred. The other authors aren't familiar to me: Paul Randell Morrison, Edmund du Perrier, Hal Firanze, and Kurt von Rachen. Wait a minute, Kurt von Rachen was L. Ron Hubbard, so I guess I've heard of him after all. Controversial though he may be, I like Hubbard's pulp stories for the most part, and for all I know, those other guys were fine writers. So this is probably a decent issue. 

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Giant Western, June 1952

This is a pulp that I own and read recently. That’s my somewhat ragged copy in the scan. The covers aren’t in great shape, but the pages inside are really nice, just lightly tanned and very supple. I think the cover art is by Sam Cherry, but I’m not absolutely sure about that.

For a change, a story in a pulp billed as a novel actually is long enough to be considered one. “Nobody’s Neutral in Kansas” by Roe Richmond is about 40,000 words, I’m guessing, maybe even a little longer. It’s only sort of a Western, though, more of a historical yarn taking place in Kansas in the late 1850s and early 1860s and dealing with the violence there between pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions in the lead-up to the Civil War. Rupe Maitland and his father and brother have come from the east and settled on a farm in Kansas, and they just want to be left alone instead of taking sides in the conflict. But then tragedy occurs, hostilities increase, and inevitably Rupe and his family and friends are drawn into the bloody clashes. Roe Richmond knew how to keep a story moving along briskly and his action scenes are excellent. The biggest problem I have with this story is how unrelentingly bleak and grim it is. Of course, given the subject matter, it couldn’t exactly be a light-hearted romp. Still, it makes for heavy reading. But worthwhile, I’d say. (As a bibliographic aside, there’s a story of the same title by Richmond in the December 1951 issue of REAL WESTERN STORIES, but it’s much shorter. I haven’t read it, so I have no idea if Richmond expanded it for this version in GIANT WESTERN or if he just liked the title and they’re completely different stories.)

I don’t recall reading much by Cliff Walter in the past. He was a prolific contributor to the Western pulps. His story “Montana Man” in this issue is about a colorful old mountain man and his encounter with some settlers. It’s written in a folksy, supposedly humorous style that fell completely flat with me. Didn’t like it at all and wound up skimming through it.

I’ve found Robert L. Trimnell’s work to be a little inconsistent, but when he’s on his game, his stories are really, really good. His novelette in this issue has a pretty generic title, “Gun For Hire”, so I was a tad bit leery of it, but it didn’t take me long to realize that this is a terrific yarn. Tough Texas cowboy Mike Morrow trail bosses a herd to Montana, and once it’s been delivered, the crew blows off some well-earned steam in a night of drinking and debauchery. Unfortunately for Mike, when he wakes up the next morning, he has more than a hangover to contend with. He’s been framed for murder, and he winds up in the middle of a war between two rustlers, one of whom happens to be a beautiful young woman with a fondness for wearing red silk shirts with nothing under them. (Yeah, it’s a little risqué for a Western pulp story in 1952.) Mike is blackmailed into working for the young woman, but mostly he wants to sort things out and keep her from getting into too much trouble. Trimnell tells the story in hardboiled prose that reminded me of 1950s Gold Medal crime novels even more than the Western Gold Medals. He even provides a small but effective twist in the big showdown at the end. This is one of the best Western pulp stories I’ve read in a while.

Giff Cheshire is yet another author who’s hit-or-miss with me. “Drivers’ Pass” in this issue centers around the conflict between a railroad spur line being built into a mining town and the freight outfit that hauls goods with mules and wagons. It’s an interesting, well-written story that suffers from a really rushed ending, but other than that, I liked it.

Inconsistency seems to be an unofficial theme of this issue. I’ve read plenty of very good novels and stories by William Hopson, but I’ve read some that were pretty bad, too. His story “The Blue Mule” wraps up the fiction in this issue. Which was it going to be? This story is narrated by the eight-year-old son of a horse trader and starts out like it’s going to be a humorous, Doc Swap sort of story. Then it gets more serious with the introduction of a bully and a new county attorney from the east. The plot meanders around as if Hopson couldn’t decide what he wanted to write about and comes to an inconclusive ending. I hate to say it because I like Hopson’s work more often than not, but despite the narrator’s engaging voice, this just isn’t much of a story and isn’t very good.

I believe this is the first issue of GIANT WESTERN I’ve ever read, and it’s very much a mixed bag. The Trimnell story is fantastic, the Richmond novel is very good if depressing, the Cheshire story is okay, and the other two stories I didn’t like at all. Don’t go running to your shelves to look for this one, but if you do have a copy, I highly suggest you check out Trimnell’s yarn.

A Rough Edges Rerun Review: The Backwoods - Edward Lee

I was in the mood to read a horror novel, and having heard good things about Edward Lee’s work, I decided to try one of his. I knew his books have a reputation for containing a lot of extreme violence and a considerable amount of sex, so I wasn’t really surprised to encounter both of those things in THE BACKWOODS. It’s the story of high-powered Washington D.C. attorney Patricia White, who returns to the small town in rural Virginia where she grew up for her brother-in-law’s funeral. What she finds there are all sorts of sinister, dangerous secrets, including a clan of mysterious backwoods folks who practice an ancient religion of their own and a series of bizarre murders that have no rational explanation.

Well, those of you who have read very many horror novels will know right away where some of these plot elements are going, and I was somewhat disappointed that there weren’t more plot twists along the way. Lee does include some surprises in his story, though, and tells it in fast-paced, evocative prose that’s fun to read. I found enough to like here that I’m definitely interested in reading more of his books. Although it’s not for everybody, I’d recommend THE BACKWOODS to anyone who likes the novels of, say, Richard Laymon – which I do, quite a bit.

(As usual, despite the intention stated above, I haven't read anything else by Edward Lee since this post first appeared on December 7, 2008. The image above is from the Leisure paperback edition I read back then. THE BACKWOODS is still in print in e-book and trade paperback editions, as are numerous others of his books. I would say that I ought to check out some of them, but, well, you know how that seems to go with me.)

Review: Jubal Stone, U.S. Marshal: The Town With No Tongue - Casey Nash

U.S. Marshal Jubal Stone and Deputy U.S. Marshal Tanner Burns, who work out of Waco, Texas, are sent to a settlement in west Texas to bring back two prisoners. When they get there, they discover that no one in town is willing to talk to them except the two local lawmen. The citizens aren’t unable to speak—they’re afraid to!

That’s the intriguing premise of THE TOWN WITH NO TONGUE, the latest installment in the long-running Jubal Stone series by prolific author Casey Nash. I don’t believe I’ve ever run across this particular plot before, and when you’ve read as many Westerns as I have, that’s saying something.

THE TOWN WITH NO TONGUE has another oddball element to it, and that’s the appearance of a dime novelist who happens to be named James Reasoner. Well, “happens to be” is stretching things, since I knew Nash was going to feature me as a character in this book, along with my faithful canine friend Marlowe, and I have to say, he captures us both pretty well. Eagle-eyed readers will spot a couple of other familiar names, too.

This is a fast-moving, entertaining yarn with a couple of very likable protagonists. It’s actually the first book I’ve read in the series, and I’m going to have to go back and catch up on some of the others. THE TOWN WITH NO TONGUE, another strong entry from Dusty Saddle Publishing, is available in e-book and paperback editions.

Movie Review: Elevation (2024)

This movie came out in 2024, so I don’t really think it’s old enough to consider it a Movie I’ve Missed Until Now. In fact, I think I’ll just slap an arbitrary rule on here and say that a movie has to have come out before 2020 in order to get that designation. However, ELEVATION is, in fact, a movie I never heard of until I came across it recently and decided to give it a try.

During the pitch meeting for this movie, somebody is bound to have said, “It’s like A QUIET PLACE, only instead of being quiet so the scary monsters won’t get you, you have to stay above 8,000 feet in elevation so the scary monsters won’t get you.” That’s the plot, boiled down. A brief prologue clues us in that several years earlier, giant sinkholes suddenly opened all over the world and indestructible monsters came out to massacre 95% of Earth’s population.

Giant sinkholes with monsters coming out of them immediately makes me think of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, and my first question is, “Hey, where’s the Mole Man?” Well, nowhere in sight in this movie. No superheroes come to the rescue. Earth gets its butt kicked, and the monsters have taken over the world except for a few colonies of survivors established above 8,000 feet.

Anthony Mackie and his young son live in one such colony in Colorado, but the boy needs some medical equipment to survive, so he sets off for Boulder with a scientist played by Morena Baccarin. She’s obsessed with finding a way to kill the monsters and believes that if she can reach her lab there, she’ll be able to do so. Unfortunately, Boulder is below 8,000 feet.

Most of the movie consists of them getting there and back, with lots of danger and adventure along the way. And it’s decently done, too. The special effects look a little crude now and then, but overall the movie worked for me. Mackie and Baccarin both do decent jobs. There are a few other characters, but the movie is really theirs to carry. There’s no sex, and despite the presence of scary monsters and death, very little gore.

I was going to gripe about how we don’t even get any handwavium to explain the plot, but then late in the movie there’s a twist that actually does explain some things while opening up other questions. I’ve seen speculation on-line that this movie was made as a pilot for an unsold streaming series, and the plot twist and a mid-credits epilogue make a strong case for that. I liked it enough I wouldn’t have minded seeing it continue. As is, it’s not exactly an overlooked gem, but it is an enjoyable hour and a half and I’m glad we watched it.

Review: Tex: Cinnamon Wells - Chuck Dixon and Mario Alberti

This is the second volume I’ve read from the set of six Tex Willer graphic novels I backed on Kickstarter. Chuck Dixon is one of my all-time favorite comic book authors, and ever since I found out he wrote some Tex stories, I’ve been curious about them.

CINNAMON WELLS, which has artwork by Mario Alberti, opens with a violent bank robbery in the town of the title. The local lawman is organizing a posse to go after the outlaws when Tex, who is a Texas Ranger, rides in. He joins the posse, of course, and off they go after the bank robbers.

Posse stories are one of my favorite Western sub-genres, and Dixon does some unexpected and enjoyable things in this one, rather than sticking with the standard plot. Eventually it’s just Tex and one prisoner on the trail of the gang. That prisoner becomes a reluctant ally when they encounter an unrelated threat. That leads up to a classic showdown and an epilogue that’s also unexpected but quite satisfying.

This volume has some interesting angles besides the story and art. As I was reading it, some of the dialogue seemed, well, unDixon-like. Curious about that, I went to the source, and Chuck confirmed that his script was written in English, translated into Italian for this story’s original appearance, and then translated back into English for this volume by someone else. So it’s Dixon’s plot all the way, but the words are only sort of his. Despite the occasional awkwardness, the script moves along briskly, and Alberti’s art works well for me, too. CINNAMON WELLS is a fast, entertaining read.

Chuck also told me this story was inspired by the many hardboiled Western movies starring Randolph Scott, a mutual favorite of yours, and the outlaw who’s both ally and enemy to Tex is modeled on actor Henry Silva, who played one of the villains in the Scott film THE TALL T. I love finding out this kind of background info, and my thanks to Chuck for answering my questions and allowing me to pass it along here.