Val Penmark, a crusty old rancher out for vengeance, and Jason Drum, a young cowboy who wants to recover the money his family depends on, are a two-man posse chasing a gang of bank robbers through the badlands of southern Arizona in DAY OF THE BUZZARD, a 1976 novel by T.V. Olsen published originally by Fawcett Gold Medal. A couple of women wind up involved in the chase, as well as an Apache war party, and you can tell right from the start that this is going to be a really gritty, hardboiled Western yarn.
Considering that he was regarded as a top-notch Western writer for many years, I’ve read surprisingly little by T.V. Olsen. Years ago I read one of his paperback novels and remember not liking it much. Since then I’ve read a few of his pulp stories and thought they were pretty good. But DAY OF THE BUZZARD is the first Olsen novel I’ve read since high school, so I wasn’t really sure what to expect.
This one is really good, with Olsen doing a fine job of capturing the blazing heat and arid terrain of the setting. For some reason, I don’t associate his work with the Southwest, but he nails it here. None of the characters are particularly likable, even the two protagonists, but they’re all interesting. The outlaws are suitably despicable, especially the gang’s leader. The action scenes are well-done, and Olsen creates some genuine suspense.
I raced through this novel, and it left me very interested in reading more by T.V. Olsen. At one point, Leisure reprinted DAY OF THE BUZZARD in a double volume with Olsen’s novel RUN TO THE MOUNTAIN. Amazon owns the rights to all those old Leisure books now, and that double volume is still available in e-book and paperback editions. Highly recommended if you’re a fan of hardboiled Westerns, with the caveat that since it came out in 1976, the language and sex scenes are a little more graphic, although not Adult Western level.
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