Review: Queen's Own - George C. Appell

I’d read several Western pulp stories by George C. Appell and enjoyed them, and I own some of his Western novels that I haven’t read yet, but I didn’t know he had written any historical novels until I came across this one, which was published as a paperback original by Dell in 1955 and never reprinted as far as I know. The great George Gross cover caught my eye immediately, and I was intrigued enough to go ahead and read it.

The story takes place in India during the 1897 uprising by the Afridis and the Pathans against British colonial rule. The nominal protagonist is Captain Ian Macleod, a Canadian/Scots officer in the lancer regiment tasked with keeping the peace in part of the Northwest Frontier. QUEEN’S OWN really has an ensemble cast, though, with characters ranging from its commanding officer to a younger officer who’s rivals with Macleod, a beautiful half-caste dancer who’s a spy, her gun-running father, the beautiful young American woman who’s engaged to Macleod’s rival, and the leader of the uprising who wants to wipe out the British.

If you’re thinking this sounds like it would have made a good movie, you’re right. I can easily imagine it as a fairly big budget production in the Forties or Fifties. You can cast it in your head as well as I can, according to your own preferences, except for the commanding officer who has to be C. Aubrey Smith. I won’t budge on that one.

But I was talking about the book. Well, Appell was a good writer. I always thought his style was a bit more literary than most Western pulpsters, and he gives that free reign here, creating a very vivid setting and inhabiting it with complex, fully developed characters. The problem with QUEEN’S OWN is that there’s very little action in it. The first two-thirds of the book is almost all political intrigue and soap opera. It’s well-written, no doubt about that, but even so, I was waiting for something else to happen.

The final third of the book is much more eventful, but even there, a frustratingly large amount of the action occurs off-screen. However, the ending is pretty satisfying, the characters are interesting, and the historical background is handled well. The whole thing just needed a little more oomph, I guess you could say.

I’m glad I read QUEEN’S OWN, and I think that overall it’s worthwhile, but if you’re going to give it a try, you should know it’s not quite the sexy, action-packed, historical adventure that the cover promises.