The Diehards - Dudley Dean (Dudley Dean McGaughey)

Brett Mackey, foreman of one of the largest ranches in the Big Bend, returns home after a cattle drive to find the area on the brink of a range war. Brett’s boss, cattle baron Port Riordan, had his eye on a neighboring spread whose owner had died. But a big eastern syndicate swooped in and bought the ranch out from under Riordan, then put ruthless Vance Bushard in charge of it. Bushard wants to take over Riordan’s ranch as well. To make matters even worse, Bushard also has his eye on the beautiful blonde Brett Mackey intends to marry. Put all these things together, and it’s bound to lead to shootin’.

Or not. Dudley Dean McGaughey, author of THE DIEHARDS, takes a very standard plot and puts a slightly different spin on it, delving deeper into the characterization of the people involved in it and less on the inevitable action. Make no mistake about it, that action is good, including several very brutal fistfights and a fair amount of gunplay. But this novel also features a lot of angst and brooding, which is okay if done well and McGaughey does a good job with it.

However, that focus on character slows down the story’s pace, and the other problem with THE DIEHARDS is related to that. This book has the most unlikable bunch of characters I’ve come across recently. Almost everybody in it is rotten in one way or another. Brett Mackey, the protagonist, is probably the most decent character, and even he comes across as stupid and gullible. The girl he’s in love with is incredibly annoying, and more than once, I wanted to grab Brett, shake him, and tell him to get on his horse and ride away while he had the chance. Some of the characters do become a little more sympathetic in the course of the book, but overall, it’s really, really bleak, which keeps me from putting it in the upper rank of McGaughey’s work.

McGaughey wrote Westerns as Dean Owen (his most common pseudonym), Dudley Dean, and Bret Sanders. He wrote crime novels as Owen Dudley and Hodge Evens and sleaze as Dean McCoy. Generally, I’ve found him to be one of the most dependable of the hardboiled Western writers of the Forties and Fifties. And THE DIEHARDS isn’t a total misfire. The action is excellent, as always, and the Big Bend setting is really good. If you’re a fan of McGaughey’s work, it’s worth reading. But if you’ve never read any of his books before, I sure wouldn’t start with this one.