I usually read several L.P. Holmes novels every year. As I’ve mentioned before, he’s become one of my favorite Western authors, and since I came to his work fairly late in my life, there are still a bunch of his novels that I haven’t read yet. I won’t get to all of them, but he’s always reliable when I need an entertaining Western yarn.
The most recent one I’ve read by him is THE MAVERICK STAR, published as a
paperback original by Ace Books in 1969. I’m pretty sure this isn’t a reprint
of one of Holmes’ stories from the Western pulps, where he was very prolific in
the Twenties, Thirties, and Forties. It begins with the funeral of a veteran
lawman who, as sheriff, has kept the peace between two feuding cattle barons
whose ranches are the biggest in the area. Each of those cattle barons has a
hand-picked man he wants to replace the sheriff, but instead the job goes to
the town marshal . . . who only packs the star for half an hour before he’s
gunned down, shot in the back.
The county commissioners still don’t want to give the job to one of the other
candidates, so they turn to Logan Keogh, the foreman of the other big ranch in
the area. With considerable reluctance, Keogh accepts, knowing that he’ll
probably have a target on his back, too. And sure enough, there are attempts on
his life as he tries to keep the feuding cattle barons from going to war
against each other and find out who killed the previous sheriff before the
shadowy murderer succeeds again.
THE MAVERICK STAR is a well-paced traditional Western yarn with a little more
of a mystery angle than some, and I don’t mind admitting that I didn’t figure
out who the killer was ahead of time. The solution actually took me a little by
surprise. The action scenes are excellent, although the book probably could
have used a few more of them. By the time this book came out, Holmes had been a
professional writer for more than forty years, and it’s not uncommon for an
author’s work not to have quite as much fire and passion after they’ve been in
the game for that long.
But like a good wide receiver in football who may have lost a step in speed,
Holmes can still get by on savvy and experience. He knows what he’s doing, and
THE MAVERICK STAR is a solid, entertaining tale that kept me turning the pages.
I enjoyed it and think it’s worth reading if you’re a fan of traditional
Westerns. That’s my beat-up copy in the scan, by the way.
5 comments:
Good story that appeared in Swedish translation in 1970 with Swedish title meaning 'The third sheriff'. Think his name was here spelled Logan Keogh.
You're right, I misspelled his name in the post. I'll fix that.
Thanks for checking! Just found out the same title was also published as ACE 52241 with another cover.
I'm trying to find the original title of this novel of L.P. Holmes with the title of "Ein neuer Sheriff für Tecumseh", in a German edition. Due to the name of the town, is it possible that "The Maverick Town" is the original?
Thanks a lot for the help,
Tiziano Agnelli
That doesn't sound right to me. I don't remember the name of the town, but I don't think it was Tecumseh. My copy of the book isn't where I can lay my hands on it easily, but when I can, I'll check to make sure.
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