Review: The Guns of Fort Griffin - James J. Griffin

For more than twenty years, James J. Griffin has been turning out top-notch traditional Western novels and contemporary Western thrillers, often featuring Texas Rangers. I’ve always enjoyed his books, so I didn’t hesitate to pick up his latest novel, the first in a new series. Instead of a Texas Ranger, THE GUNS OF FORT GRIFFIN features a new character, Deputy United States Marshal Vic Verdugo, who enforces the law in Texas during the late Reconstruction Era, just before the Rangers were reformed and became the premier law enforcement organization in the Lone Star State.

Verdugo is sent by his boss, a federal district judge, to the lawless frontier settlement of Fort Griffin with orders to tame the town. The U.S. Army is establishing a fort of the same name near the settlement, but Verdugo can’t expect any help from the commanding officer. In fact, the man wants to declare martial law and place the town under federal jurisdiction. With Reconstruction coming to an end, Verdugo wants to prevent the army from taking over, knowing that would just cause more trouble from the resentful Texans in the long run.

It’s a good thing that Verdugo is fast on the draw and skilled with his fists, because he finds himself surrounded by enemies as he tries to bring about law and order. The owners of the saloons and gambling dens and whorehouses all oppose him, of course, and so do the wild cowboys from the trail herds that travel through the area and the buffalo hunters who make Fort Griffin their headquarters. As if all that wasn’t enough, three newcomers show up in town and are looking for trouble. Their names: Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, and Bat Masterson.

The action never lets up for long in this yarn, and Griffin does a fine job of making the fists and bullets fly. Vic Verdugo is a tough, likable protagonist and faces plenty of vicious enemies. There’s also a real sense of authenticity in the setting and historical characters. Griffin knows his stuff. I think this is one of his best novels and recommend it for fans of traditional Westerns. It’s available on Amazon from Dusty Saddle Publishing in e-book and paperback editions.

As an aside, Fort Griffin was a real place and it’s just a coincidence that the author has the same name. But the title, THE GUNS OF FORT GRIFFIN, isn’t really a coincidence because Jim Griffin is, like me, a long-time fan of the Western pulp TEXAS RANGERS. In fact, at one point he had a complete collection before donating it to the Texas Ranger Museum in Waco, Texas. And the November 1949 issue of TEXAS RANGERS features a Jim Hatfield novel by Tom Curry writing as Jackson Cole entitled (you guessed it) “Guns of Fort Griffin”. So now you know, as Paul Harvey used to say, the rest of the story.