The Rio Kid is one of my favorite Western pulp series. This cover features a nice portrait of the Kid (really Captain Bob Pryor) and his sidekick Celestino Mireles. The thing that sets this series of novels apart is that they're based on historical incidents and several historical figures appear in each novel, complete with portraits and mini-biographies in sidebars scattered through the story. In this yarn, the historical characters are Leland Stanford, George Hearst, Black Bart, and Wyatt Earp. Tom Curry created the series and wrote most of the novels, and the ones not by Curry were written by top-notch pulpsters such as Walker A. Tompkins, Gunnison Steele (Bennie Gardner), Dean Owen (Dudley Dean McGaughey), and C. William Harrison. Many of the novels were reprinted in paperback by Curtis Books and Popular Library. I haven't read all the Rio Kid novels, but I've read most of them, including this one. This issue also includes stories by Archie Joscelyn, Richard Brister, Ben Frank, and Ben T. Young. This is putting me in the mood to read another Rio Kid novel.
4 comments:
Along the way, I picked up a couple of the Curtis reprints. That's all I've read.
I think more than half the series was reprinted in paperback, including many of the best ones.
I read 2 in this series and both were by Tompkins. They were both really competent stories with historical characters, also. I think I might try a Curry as my local library system has a few of his "Rios" in large print. Thanks for bloggon' about it.
After reading this I had to try one, so I have one KIT CARSON'S WAY by Curry on the way.
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