The Scarred One - Tyler Boone (Charles Gramlich)

Trenton Banning arrives in the mining boomtown of Sun Falls, Wyoming, on the trail of the man he blames for the fire that killed his parents when he was a child and left Banning badly scarred. Banning is convinced that mining and hotel tycoon Jonathan Hunsinger is responsible for that blaze, and Hunsinger is now in Sun Falls engaged in building a hotel and operating a mine. However, Banning isn’t in town long before he discovers a couple of things: Hunsinger has a beautiful daughter, Elizabeth, and something sinister is going on in Sun Falls. In short order, the one friend Banning makes, a burly mountain man, is attacked and badly injured. Then Banning is framed for the murder of a saloon girl, and the local lawmen won’t be any help since they seem to want Banning dead just as much as everybody else in Sun Falls.

THE SCARRED ONE is the first full-length Western novel by Charles Gramlich, writing under the pseudonym Tyler Boone. It’s an excellent debut that features top-notch handling of the traditional Western elements while at the same time giving the reader plenty of well-developed characters and some unexpected plot twists. Trenton Banning is a fine protagonist, tough enough to handle himself when trouble crops up but not a superman. The budding attraction between him and Elizabeth Hunsinger is particularly well done, and the novel’s climax is a satisfying one.

Gramlich has done very good work over the years in the horror, fantasy, and science fiction genres, and THE SCARRED ONE proves that he’s equally capable of delivering an excellent Western novel. I recommend this one and look forward to many more.

(Note: As the awards chair for Western Fictioneers’ Peacemaker Awards, I receive a number of novels every year, many of which I’d like to read. I don’t have anything to do with the actual judging for the awards—my job is strictly keeping track of the entries and counting the votes at the end of the competition—but I’ve always felt like it wouldn’t be proper for me to review any of these books while the competition is still going on, just to avoid the appearance of any undue influence. So this year I’ve decided to go ahead and read and review the ones I want to, but I’ve scheduled the posts to run after the awards have been announced. That’s why you’re seeing this in June, rather than in January when I wrote it. Look for more Peacemaker reviews to come.)

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Action Stories, January 1927

ACTION STORIES published a lot of Westerns, and the covers reflected that, especially from about 1930 on. But it also published all the other genres of adventure fiction and that can be seen on some of the early covers such as this one by H.C. Murphy. The stories in the January 1927 issue include the cover-featured Alaskan yarn by Chart Pitt, an author I'd managed never to hear of until now, despite the fact that he had a 30-year career in the pulps, plus a jungle tale by Frederick Nebel, a historical by A. deHerries Smith, and nautical adventures by Albert Richard Wetjen and Bob Du Soe. That's a pretty good mix of exciting stories.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: New Western, September 1952

I don't recall seeing a railroad handcar on a Western pulp cover before, but I'm sure there were others besides the one on this issue of NEW WESTERN. As always with a Popular Publications Western pulp, this looks like a solid issue with stories by E.B. Mann (a reprint from a 1934 issue of STAR WESTERN), George C. Appell, James B. Hendryx (a Black John yarn), Hascal Giles, Robert L. Trimnell, and Clark Gray.

Forgotten Books: Tall, Dark and Dead - Kermit Jaediker

Tina Van Lube is being blackmailed by a disreputable ex-lover, so she hires detective Lou Lait to get her incriminating love letters back. All in a day's work for Lait. Except for one small detail--the disreputable ex-lover, columnist Erskine Spalding, is found dead with a knife in his back. Suspects abound: Tina's husband Jan, disfigured war hero; Tina's hot-headed brother, Stanislaus; Coates, the recently-fired butler; plain-but-dedicated secretary, Prescott; the gun-running Colonel; the social-climbing Durkins...even Lolita, the dancer. They all had their reasons for quieting the nasty gossip columnist. Lait's making it his job to find out who did the deed.

This novel was published originally in hardback in 1947, then reprinted in paperback in 1951 by Lion Books. It's included in the latest Trio of Lions volume from Stark House, coming out later this month. It's a really entertaining private eye novel that's considerably different from Kermit Jaediker's other novel HERO'S LUST, also reprinted by Stark House. The style in this one is more breezy and lighthearted, with a wise-cracking protagonist and a cast of eccentric characters. And yet there are also some pretty violent scenes and one particularly harrowing one where the private eye has to escape when some of the villains have captured him and intend to torture him. All in all, this hits the marks very nicely and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Both of Jaediker's novels are excellent, and it's a shame he didn't write more.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Thrilling Adventures, January 1935

Here's another pulp featuring a Robert E. Howard story, and he made the cover this time. The story is "The Treasures of Tartary", a desert adventure featuring his character Kirby O'Donnell. There's a particularly strong line-up of authors in this issue with REH, Arthur J. Burks, Ray Cummings, Johnston McCulley, Wayne Rogers, and house-names Sam Brant and Kerry McRoberts. This looks like a really fine issue.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Cowboy Stories, June 1936

Since Robert E. Howard Days is going on in Cross Plains, Texas, this weekend, here's a pulp featuring one of his stories. As I understand it, the dates on pulp magazines were actually off-sale dates, not on-sale dates, so this issue of COWBOY STORIES would have been on the newsstands before Howard's death on June 11 and unsold copies would have been pulled a few days before that. Howard's name isn't on the cover, but inside is his story "A Man-Eating Jeopard", featuring his character Buckner Jeopardy Grimes. This issue also features a novella by Luke Short and stores by S. Omar Barker, Archie Joscelyn, Hapsburg Leibe, and Alfred L. Garry.

Forgotten Books: El Cazador - Chuck Dixon and Steve Epting

I always enjoy a good pirate yarn, and here’s one I completely missed. EL CAZADOR was a six-issue comic book written by Chuck Dixon with art by Steve Epting, published by CrossGen Comics. It came out in 2003 and 2004, when I was reading hardly any comics at all, so I wasn’t even aware of its existence until recently. Thankfully, all six issues were reprinted in a trade paperback collection, because it’s a really good tale.

As pirate stories often do, this one opens with a battle at sea, as the pirate ship captained by the villainous Blackjack Tom captures a Spanish vessel, kills the crew, and takes a couple of aristocratic passengers to hold for ransom. But unknown to the pirates, one of the passengers has managed to hide from them, a young woman named Cinzia Elena Marie Esperanza Diego-Luis Hidalgo. She does more than just hide, though. When Blackjack Tom leaves a skeleton crew on the Spanish ship to sail it into port, Cinzia (who was taught to use a sword by her father) kills the man in charge, takes over the ship, convinces the crew to swear loyalty to her, and sets off after Blackjack Tom to get vengeance and free the prisoners, who are her mother and younger brother. She renames the ship El Cazador (which means “The Hunter”) and instead of using her long real name, the crew dubs her Lady Sin.

The rest of the story involves the pursuit of Blackjack Tom, a mutiny, clashes with other pirates, etc. And what’s frustrating is that because of the bankruptcy and collapse of CrossGen Comics, the tale never reaches an ending. “To Be Continued”, it says on the final page, but unfortunately, it never was.

What we have, though, is wonderful stuff, with a fine, hardboiled, and historically accurate script by Dixon, one of the all-time great comics scripters, complemented by excellent art from Steve Epting, one of the best modern-day comics artists. It’s a shame the story was never finished, but what’s there can be read with great enjoyment by comics fans, pirate fans, and really, anybody who likes top-notch historical fiction. EL CAZADOR gets a high recommendation from me.

Overlooked Movies: And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself (2003)

Given my interest in most things Western, and also my interest in the early days of the movie-making business, how in the world did I not know this movie even existed until recently? No matter, because now I’ve seen AND STARRING PANCHO VILLA AS HIMSELF and really enjoyed it.

Made for HBO in 2003, this is a fictionalization of historical incidents in which a producer and cameramen from the Mutual Film Company went to Mexico during the revolution and traveled with Pancho Villa’s army in order to get footage of actual battles and then make a movie about Villa’s life. The producer, Frank Thayer (played by an actor I’m not familiar with, Eion Bailey) is the protagonist, and the movie is kind of a coming-of-age story as well as a portrait of the developing friendship between the young man from New Jersey and the flamboyant, charismatic revolutionary. Plenty of historical figures show up in the story, from director Christy Cabanne to Raoul Walsh, the actor who plays the young Villa, to journalist John Reed and muckraking newspaperman William Randolph Hearst. Mixed in with them are fictional characters such as the Jewish mercenary machine-gunner who’s part of Villa’s army, played by Alan Arkin.

This is a really handsome production with a good cast, epic sweep, and lots of well-done action, but it’s dominated by the scenery-chewing of Antonio Banderas as Pancho Villa. I say that in a good way, because an over-the-top historical character such as Villa deserves an over-the-top portrayal. Like most good historical dramas, AND STARRING PANCHO VILLA AS HIMSELF leaves you thinking, well, maybe not everything in there happened exactly the way they show it—but it should have. I liked this one a lot and am glad I came across it.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: The Masked Detective, Spring 1942

I know I read the lead novel from this issue of THE MASKED DETECTIVE many years ago in a reprint edition, but I couldn't tell you anything about it except that I remember enjoying it. The Masked Detective is really crime reporter Rex Parker. Norman A. Daniels wrote more of his exploits under the house-name Robert Wallace than anyone else, but my old editor and mentor Sam Merwin Jr. wrote several of them, including this one (although I didn't know that at the time I read it). This issue also features a short story by Fredric Brown. I like the cover and wouldn't mind reading more Masked Detective yarns. Maybe one of these days.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Six-Gun Western, April 1949

This cover looks like it should have been used on an issue of SPICY WESTERN, but as far as I can tell, it never was. So I think there was a chance it was a left-over painting from the magazine that finally got used on this issue of SIX-GUN WESTERN, also from Trojan Magazines, Inc. Inside are stories by the legendarily prolific E. Hoffmann Price and Larry A. Harris, another stalwart of the Western pulps. The other authors are either house-names or guys I've never heard of. I suspect it's an entertaining issue anyway.