Review: Texas Land Grab - Johnny Nelson (Gordon Clive Bleeck?)

During the Seventies, Leisure Books in the United States reprinted several Western novels originally published in Australia by Cleveland Publishing, including one of the Larry and Stretch novels by Leonard F. Meares writing as Marshall Grover and several double volumes of Benedict and Brazos novels by Paul Wheelahan writing as E. Jefferson Clay. My friend Anders Nilsson, who is doing some excellent bibliographic work regarding Australian Westerns, tipped me off to the existence of another American edition of an Australian Western I’d never come across: TEXAS LAND GRAB, published under the house-name Johnny Nelson. The most likely author of this one, according to Anders, is Gordon Clive Bleeck, a very prolific Australian writer who turned out more than 400 novels in a variety of genres under many different pseudonyms and house-names. I was curious enough to find a copy of TEXAS LAND GRAB and read it.

The protagonist of this yarn is Chad Walford, a cowboy who has homesteaded some land to start his own ranch. Unfortunately, he finds himself in the middle of a three-cornered range war involving a cattle baron and a group of sodbusters who have moved in and established a new town. In a nice twist, the cattle baron and the leader of the farmers join forces against Chad, whose only allies are a hotheaded young gunfighter and a wily, half-Apache old-timer. Also involved in the story are a long-winded judge and his beautiful niece.

There are some good action scenes in this novel, including a stampede that threatens to wipe out the sodbuster town. Chad is a stalwart protagonist, if a little bit bland, and the judge and the old half-breed are colorful, well-done supporting characters. The villains are suitably despicable. Overall, TEXAS LAND GRAB is nothing we haven’t seen many times before, but it’s put together reasonably well and is a fast, entertaining read if you’re a fan of traditional Westerns like I am. There are only a few instances of words and phrasing not quite ringing true to indicate that the author was Australian, not American.

Given Leisure’s history, I’ve always figured they pirated the Australian Westerns they published, and that may well be true. The American edition gives a 1979 copyright date for the Cleveland edition, but Anders believes TEXAS LAND GRAB was published originally in the mid-Sixties, based on its cover price. I’m perfectly willing to accept that because Anders knows more about this stuff than probably anybody else in the world. And I’m glad he brought this one to my attention. I had a good time reading it, and a short, enjoyable Western yarn was just what I needed right now.