Young rancher Johnny Lang returns to his hometown in New Mexico after serving five years in prison. He was guilty of the robbery he committed, but there were extenuating circumstances. Johnny was railroaded behind bars anyway by his enemy, local cattle baron Ben Mohegan. In most traditional Western novels, Johnny would want to settle the score with Mohegan, but not in Philip Ketchum’s THE GHOST RIDERS, published as half of an Ace Double with William Heuman’s HARDCASE HALLORAN in 1963. Johnny doesn’t plan to stay long; he just wants to pay a visit to the old home place and then light out for Oregon. No more trouble, he vows.
Yeah, you know that’s not going to last long.
Johnny winds up in a shooting scrape and has to head for the hills to hide out
from a posse. While he’s doing that, an old friend shows up looking for him,
and that leads to Johnny getting involved in a beautiful stranger’s vengeance
quest, as she has a grudge against Mohegan, too. Not only that, the smaller
ranchers in the area are tired of Mohegan riding roughshod over them and have
decided to fight back against him, and of course they figure Johnny will jump
at the chance to lead them. Nope, after being in prison, Johnny just wants peace.
If only people would stop shooting at him . . .
Veteran pulpster and paperbacker Philip Ketchum knew how to spin a fast-moving,
hardboiled Western yarn, that’s for sure. THE GHOST RIDERS races along with
plenty of action and interesting, well-developed characters. For somebody who
doesn’t want trouble, Johnny Lang sure finds plenty of it, and everything comes
to a climax that’s particularly satisfying to me, although I can’t say why
without venturing too far into spoiler territory. Like nearly all the Ace
Double Westerns I’ve read, this is a solid, enjoyable novel, and if you’re a
fan of traditional Westerns, THE GHOST RIDERS is well worth reading.
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