Caz, Vigilante Hunter #1: Slaughter at Buzzard's Gulch - Scott Harris

Scott Harris has become a very popular Western author in the past couple of years, best known for his series featuring Brock Clemons and the non-fiction volumes he’s edited about Western novels, movies, and TV shows. But he’s also writing a series of Western action novels about a character known only as Caz, Vigilante Hunter. (Just to be clear, he is a vigilante, he doesn’t hunt vigilantes.) In the best tradition of Western TV shows such as CHEYENNE, he’s a drifter who helps people out and hunts down bad guys who need hunting down simply because it’s the right thing to do. And he doesn’t show any mercy to those bad guys, either.

I’ve just read the first book in this series, SLAUGHTER AT BUZZARD’S GULCH, and it certainly doesn’t stint on the action. Caz takes pity on a mistreated soiled dove and winds up being targeted for death by the owner of the whorehouse and his brutal minions. Much shooting, fighting, and stabbing ensues. Harris never lets the pace slow down for very long, but when it does, it’s to put in some nice bit of characterization. Caz is enough of an anti-hero to give this book a little of the same feeling as the Edge books and other British Western series written by the Piccadilly Cowboys. In his dispensing of his own brand of justice, he also comes across like a Western Mack Bolan at times, although there’s no organization he’s fighting like Bolan took on the Mafia. He’s certainly a compelling character, and creating characters like that seems to be Harris’s strong suit.

Most traditional Western readers ought to enjoy SLAUGHTER AT BUZZARD’S GULCH. You can get it for a great price in a boxed set including the first four books in the series.

52 Weeks * 52 Western Novels - Scott Harris and Paul Bishop, eds.

52 WEEKS • 52 WESTERN NOVELS is the first in a new series edited by my friends Scott Harris and Paul Bishop spotlighting some of the best in Western entertainment, starting with books both old and new and followed by volumes on Western movies and TV shows. It’s a great beginning to a very worthwhile project.

Written by a variety of Western authors and readers, including me, the entries in this book range from H.A. DeRosso’s bleak Western noir .44 to Will Murray’s classic history of the Western pulps, WORDSLINGERS. Each essay discusses a particular book and its author, along personal connections, behind-the-scenes facts, and movie adaptations for the books that were turned into films. It’s a fascinating approach that traces the traditional Western from its beginnings with THE VIRGINIAN and RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE to THE LEGEND OF CALEB YORK by Max Allan Collins and Mickey Spillane, published in 2015. Anyone who hasn’t read Westerns before could read one a week, using this volume as a guide, and get a good sense of just what a wide range the genre really has. Plus there are plenty of really nice cover illustrations.

For what it’s worth, I’ve read 30 of the 52 books covered here, and I don’t doubt that I’ll read many of the others in the future. Quite a few of them are already on my shelves, just waiting for me to find the time. Whether you’re a Western fan or not, 52 WEEKS • 52 WESTERN NOVELS get the highest recommendation from me.

Coyote Courage - Scott Harris

Brock Clemons rides into the small town of Dry Springs simply looking for a place to grab a cigar and a good night’s sleep. Instead, he finds a town being strangled by a band of hardened outlaws, a young boy named Huck who is bravely facing challenges far beyond his years, and Sophie, a woman of captivating strength and beauty. Brock decides to stay beyond the one night he had planned, but will his intelligence, courage, and unmatched skill with a gun be enough to save the town, help Huck, and win Sophie’s heart?

In his debut novel, Scott Harris has done a good job writing a traditional Western in the classic mode, reminiscent of Louis L'Amour with its first-person narration, clear-cut distinction between good and evil, and action scenes that are fast-paced and exciting without being graphically violent. The plot takes an unexpected twist or two and there are some nice lines of dialogue, but where Harris really excels is with his characters. Brock Clemons is a fine protagonist with an intriguing history, a man raised in England but not out of place in the Old West, well read, gentle and reflective most of the time but plenty tough when he needs to be. I also like the youngster Huck, who comes across as a real boy, not just a character type or a grown-up in a child's body. For fans of traditional Westerns, COYOTE COURAGE is well worth reading.