A while back I read T.V. Olsen’s hardboiled Western novel DAY OF THE BUZZARD and enjoyed it quite a bit, so I decided to give RUN TO THE MOUNTAIN a try. To be honest, both novels are available together in a double volume that you can find on Kindle Unlimited, which is the version I read instead of the original paperback from Gold Medal shown above.
With winter closing in, drifting cowboy Bowie Candler seems to be out of luck. He’s on foot after a mountain lion kills his horse, and bad weather is threatening. But wouldn’t you know it, things just get worse for him. He finds some horses and takes one of them, but that just gets him in trouble with the vicious son of a local rancher. Bowie winds up working on the ranch, which is a hotbed of lust, ambition, and tragedy. RUN TO THE MOUNTAIN is part noir, part soap opera, and part hardboiled Western (the ranch is losing stock to rustlers, which is the most traditional Western part of the plot).
Olsen writes really well, spinning his yarn in tough, terse prose that does a particularly good job with the harsh Colorado landscape. (I think it’s Colorado; Olsen never gets specific about that, but people go to Denver.) The supporting cast is excellent, with a number of truly despicable villains and a great sidekick for Bowie.
But man, this is a dark book! Several sympathetic characters die, Bowie isn’t a very effective protagonist most of the time, and although there are a few slivers of hope here and there, the ranch is a pretty grim place. I haven’t read a lot of Olsen’s work yet, but he reminds me of Lewis B. Patten and H.A. DeRosso. I think he writes well enough that I want to read more of his books, but I may try one of his historical adventure novels next, instead of another Western.
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