Gunfight at Laramie - Lee Hoffman

This is the first Western novel that Lee Hoffman wrote, although it was published second after THE LEGEND OF BLACKJACK SAM. Hoffman was an active member of science fiction fandom and wrote this novel at the urging of her friend, SF author, editor, and fan Ted White. She submitted it to fellow SF fan Terry Carr, then working as an editor at Ace Books, and he bought it, which explains the dedication to “Norman Edwards, who made this book possible,” because Norman Edwards was a pseudonym shared by White and Carr for their collaborations. There are a couple of similar Easter eggs later in the book, with the mention of a character named Ron Archer (another pseudonym of White’s) and a Pinkerton operative named Vanarnam, after another of White’s collaborators, Dave Van Arnam. It’s entirely possible there may be others that slipped past me.

Despite that science fiction background, GUNFIGHT AT LARAMIE is a pure traditional Western novel, and a really good one, at that. The protagonist Devereaux (I don’t think we ever get his first name; he’s just known as Dev) is a former railroader who served in the Union army during the Civil War and spent time in a Confederate prison camp. Following the war, he became a telegrapher in Illinois and remained in that job until he was implicated in a train wreck and the robbery that followed it. He was framed, of course, but he was blacklisted anyway and can’t work for any railroad anymore. He’s been working as a skinner in a buffalo hunting camp, but when he gets word that the man he blames for framing him is in Laramie, he hitches a ride on a train heading in that direction. The time is not long after the war, when the transcontinental railroad is just being built. It hasn’t reached the raw new town of Laramie yet, but it soon will. Unfortunately for Dev, the train he’s riding on is derailed, and once again he’s caught in the middle of a disaster for which he may be blamed.

Most of this is back-story, and Hoffman gets it out of the way quickly. When Dev arrives in Laramie, he not only has to hunt down the man he holds responsible for all his trouble, but he also finds himself in the middle of a complex storyline involving a beautiful saloon owner, her husband, a couple of fast guns, a mysterious Indian, and an embittered farmer. A lot of GUNFIGHT AT LARAMIE reads like a hardboiled crime novel as Dev has to sort out friend from foe, figure out what’s really behind everything, and survive several attempts on his life.

Hoffman packs a lot into this short novel (as half of an Ace Double with Brian Garfield’s THE WILD PACK on the other side, it’s maybe 40,000 words). But it all makes sense, the story moves along at a nice clip, and the gritty action scenes are excellent. The characters are well-developed, and there’s a sexual element to the plot that’s unusual for that era of Western novels.

This is the second of Hoffman’s traditional Western novels I’ve read this year, and I’m really impressed by her work so far. I’m glad there are still quite a few more of them for me to get around to. In the meantime, if you’re a Western fan, I give GUNFIGHT AT LARAMIE a high recommendation.

Nothing But a Drifter - Lee Hoffman

A couple of weeks ago, a friend emailed me to ask my opinion of Western writer Lee Hoffman, who was a well-known science fiction fan and fanzine editor before she began writing Western novels in the Sixties. I knew I’d read one novel by Hoffman but had to look up her books before I recalled which one. It turned out to be her first novel, THE LEGEND OF BLACKJACK SAM, and I read it more than fifty years ago when it came out. I also recalled that I thought it was okay, but I never read anything else by her, possibly because it was a comedic Western, and as I’ve mentioned many times, those usually don’t work for me unless they’re by W.C. Tuttle or Robert E. Howard.

However, Hoffman’s 1976 novel NOTHING BUT A DRIFTER is available as an e-book on Kindle Unlimited, and since I know that her work is generally well-regarded, I decided it was time to read another of her novels and see what I thought about it now.

The drifter of the title is a Texas cowboy named Brian who finds himself in Wyoming or Montana (Hoffman never specifies the setting, but that’s the impression I got) looking for a riding job. He encounters another Texan, a rancher who has moved north with his Swedish wife, their beautiful daughter, and two sons, and started a small spread. When an accident on the range leaves the man laid up for a while, Brian agrees to stay on and help keep the ranch running.

If you’ve ever read any Westerns, you know things aren’t going to work out that simply. Soon, Brian finds himself up to his neck in rustling, a possible range war, a threat of trouble with the local Indians, and a romantic rivalry over the rancher’s beautiful daughter with a neighboring cattleman who’s ruthless enough to stop at nothing to get what he wants. As you can tell from that description, NOTHING BUT A DRIFTER is a pretty traditional Western.

It’s also a very well-written one, and if the plot twists that Hoffman adds don’t come as huge surprises, they still work well and are quite satisfying. And some of the twists I was expecting didn’t come about, which is a nice surprise in itself. This book leans toward the low-key, more realistic side of the scale, more Elmer Kelton than Ed Earl Repp, and Hoffman does a fine job with it. The action is a little sparse until late in the book, but there’s plenty of suspense and the slam-bang ending is worth waiting for.

Overall, I’m glad I gave Lee Hoffman another chance because NOTHING BUT A DRIFTER is a terrific book and thoroughly entertaining. It was published originally in hardback by Doubleday in 1976 as part of the Double D line, reprinted in paperback by Leisure in 2010, and is still available in paperback and e-book editions. As soon as I finished it, I immediately ordered another Lee Hoffman novel, LOCO, the one my friend recommended to me. I’m looking forward to reading it.