The Jim Hatfield story in this issue, “Rustlers
Ride”, has been attributed to A. Leslie Scott, but when I started
reading it, I said, “Wait a minute. This has to be a Tom Curry
story.” The first two chapters have all the hallmarks of a Hatfield
yarn by Curry, including several scenes setting up the plot before
Hatfield is ever introduced and a proxy hero in the person of
stalwart young rancher Arch Haley. The prose is the straightforward
storytelling of Curry, as well, lacking any of the descriptions and
catch phrases you always find in Scott’s work.
Then, in
Chapter 3, everything changes. The writing is definitely Scott’s,
and that continues to the end of the novel. There are a number of
plot twists that don’t turn out the way they seem to be set up in
the first two chapters. If I had to guess, I’d say Tom Curry
started this novel, and then for some unknown reason Scott took over
with the third chapter. I could be ’way off on that theory, of
course. This is pure speculation on my part. But it comes from
reading a bunch of both authors’ work over the past 60
years.
Anyway, regardless of who wrote what, is “Rustlers
Ride” a good Jim Hatfield novel? Yes, it is. Despite the title,
rustling plays almost no part in this story. Instead, it’s about a
gold strike in West Texas and the gang of outlaws preying on the
mines and the nearby town. Hatfield foils numerous of the gang’s
plans before finally figuring out who the mastermind is, and even
though the big boss’s identity is pretty obvious, it still involves
one of those nice twists mentioned above. The breakneck pace and the
action scenes are good, as always. There’s nothing here Hatfield
fans haven’t read many times before, but it’s done well and I had
a really good time reading this story.
Moving on, Leslie
Ernenwein’s short story “Outlaw Hunch” is about a former
owlhoot gone straight and turned livery stable owner who has to
consider a return to outlawry, but for noble reasons. This is a
fairly lightweight, almost humorous story until it turns deadly
serious near the end. I really like the way Ernenwein writes, and
this is a very good story, reprinted from the March 1946 issue of THE
RIO KID WESTERN. I need to read more of Ernenwein’s novels.
Wayne
D. Overholser’s novelette “Traitors’ Blood is Red” originally
appeared in the April 1947 issue of THRILLING WESTERN. Like much of
Overholser’s work, it’s set in the Pacific Northwest. This story
involves espionage and a conspiracy during the Civil War which, if it
succeeds, will not only alter the course of the war but change the
entire country as well. It’s an odd plot—you don’t often think
of the Pacific Northwest in terms of being important to the Civil
War, or at least I don’t—but Overholser makes it work. The
writing is a little bland, but I find that to be true of most of
Overholser’s stories.
Tom Curry appears under his own name
with a short story original to this issue, “Stranger in Town”. A
drifting gambler is blamed for a murder he didn’t commit and has to
uncover the truth. It’s a fairly common plot, but Curry, always a
dependable writer, does a good job with it.
I don’t know
anything about Cibolo Ford except that he published several dozen
stories in various Western pulps in the Thirties, Forties, and
Fifties. The name has always sounded like a pseudonym to me, but I
don’t know that it is. His story story “Widelooper Luck”, also
original to this issue, features cowpokes Stony Lonesome and
Stingaree Stanton helping their friend Gooble Nutter save his ranch
from the evil scheming of lawyer J. Tubelo Zero. Those names were
almost enough to make me skip this one, but I stuck with it and it’s
actually okay. Mildly humorous, and I found myself liking the
characters, which I didn’t expect to.
Barry Scobee is the
only pulp writer to have a mountain named after him. It’s in the
Davis Mountains in West Texas, near the town of Fort Davis. In
addition to writing for the pulps, Scobee was a journalist and
newspaper publisher and was instrumental in getting old Fort Davis, an
abandoned military outpost from frontier days, restored and turned
into a tourist attraction. His story in this issue, “Always Wanting
Something”, is a reprint from the January 1946 issue of THE RIO KID
WESTERN. It’s about a young cowboy at a turning point in his life,
trying to figure out which direction to go, and is well written
enough but never really very involving.
Best remembered for
his Western poetry, S. Omar Barker turned out quite a bit of fiction
as well. His story “Rowdy Romance”, as you’d expect from that
title, is a humorous tale about a cowboy who sets aside his wild,
devil-may-care ways in order to try to win a girl, only to have
things turn out differently than he expects. Barker had an appealing
way with words and the story is entertaining without ever really
amounting to much. It’s a reprint from the December 1936 issue of
THRILLING WESTERN.
There are also interior illustrations by
H.L. Parkhurst and Nick Eggenhoffer, among other, unsigned
illustrations.
I enjoyed this issue because “Rustlers Ride”
is a slightly above-average Jim Hatfield novel and the short story by
Leslie Ernenwein is pretty good. The other stories are highly
forgettable. But I’m glad I read the Hatfield yarn.
BLACK
STARLIGHT is a sequel to CONAN AND THE EMERALD LOTUS and finds Conan
traveling with three companions: a powerful sorceress, her mute
Khitan bodyguard/lover, and a beautiful, knife-throwing scribe. They
arrived at a bordertown on the river Styx, intending to cross from
Stygia to Shem, but the place turns out to be a ghost town full of
dangers, and to survive they have to penetrate a powerful enemy’s
stronghold on some cliffs overlooking the Styx.
Hocking’s
Conan yarns always feature numerous supernatural menaces, and that’s
certainly true in BLACK STARLIGHT. Several different kinds of evil,
necromantic creatures threaten the Cimmerian and his friends, and the
action scenes as Conan battles to survive are excellent. The
sorcerous stuff is genuinely creepy, as well, providing a blend of
adventure and horror that works really well. I raced through this
novella and really enjoyed it.
BLACK STARLIGHT was serialized
previously in one of the Conan comic book series, but since I
wasn’t keeping up with the comics at that time, I vaguely knew of
its existence but never read it. I’m glad Titan Books has brought it
back and published it in stand-alone form. Not surprisingly, it’s one
of the best Conan pastiches I’ve read. Available now and highly
recommended.
His latest collection from Stark House, A MYSTERY,
CRIME & NOIR NOTEBOOK, brings together approximately 50 articles
and essays covering those title subjects. Originally published in a
variety of magazines, anthologies, and collections, they concentrate
mostly on vintage hardboiled paperbacks but discuss some newer books,
too. (In this case, newer generally means 20 years old, instead of 50
or 60.) There are articles about specific publishers and many about
particular authors. And lots and lots of beautiful cover
reproductions, of course.
This is a wonderful book, perfect
for dipping in and out of, although to be honest, I was so engrossed
I went through most of it pretty quickly. It’s the sort of book
where as I read it, I kept saying to myself “I have that one!”
or “I read that one when I was a kid!” or “Oh, I have to find a
copy of that one and read it!” I have a hunch most of you know
exactly what I mean and would really enjoy A MYSTERY, CRIME &
NOIR NOTEBOOK. It’s available on Amazon now. I give it a very high
recommendation. It’s really a lot of fun.
Or not. Dudley Dean
McGaughey, author of THE DIEHARDS, takes a very standard plot and
puts a slightly different spin on it, delving deeper into the
characterization of the people involved in it and less on the
inevitable action. Make no mistake about it, that action is good,
including several very brutal fistfights and a fair amount of
gunplay. But this novel also features a lot of angst and brooding,
which is okay if done well and McGaughey does a good job with
it.
However, that focus on character slows down the story’s
pace, and the other problem with THE DIEHARDS is related to that.
This book has the most unlikable bunch of characters I’ve come
across recently. Almost everybody in it is rotten in one way or
another. Brett Mackey, the protagonist, is probably the most decent
character, and even he comes across as stupid and gullible. The girl
he’s in love with is incredibly annoying, and more than once, I
wanted to grab Brett, shake him, and tell him to get on his horse and
ride away while he had the chance. Some of the characters do become a
little more sympathetic in the course of the book, but overall, it’s
really, really bleak, which keeps me from putting it in the upper
rank of McGaughey’s work.
McGaughey wrote Westerns as Dean
Owen (his most common pseudonym), Dudley Dean, and Bret Sanders. He
wrote crime novels as Owen Dudley and Hodge Evens and sleaze as Dean
McCoy. Generally, I’ve found him to be one of the most dependable
of the hardboiled Western writers of the Forties and Fifties. And THE
DIEHARDS isn’t a total misfire. The action is excellent, as always,
and the Big Bend setting is really good. If you’re a fan of
McGaughey’s work, it’s worth reading. But if you’ve never read
any of his books before, I sure wouldn’t start with this one.
The Rio Kid has long been one of my favorite Western pulp series. For those of
you unfamiliar with the character, the Rio Kid is Bob Pryor, a stalwart young
Texan from the border country (hence his nickname). Pryor fought for the Union
during the Civil War and rose to the rank of captain as a cavalry officer
serving under General George Armstrong Custer. Returning to Texas after the
war, he found that his parents have been killed by bandits. After avenging
them, he sets off on a life of drifting and adventuring, accompanied by a
sidekick he picks up in the course of the first novel, the dashing young
Mexican Celestino Mireles. The gimmick of the series is that Pryor and
Celestino always find themselves involved with historical characters and
settings in adventures that, if they didn’t happen, could have—and should have.
The series was created by veteran pulpster Tom Curry, written by Curry and
numerous others, and ran for 76 issues from December 1939 to May 1953. Quite a
few of the novels were reprinted in paperback during the Sixties and Seventies
by Popular Library and Curtis Books.
The Rio Kid novel in this particular issue was written by D.B. Newton, who
authored a few of these pulp character novels but is better remembered for his
non-series Western pulp stories and a long career turning out hardback and
paperback Western novels under his own name and the pseudonyms Dwight Bennett
and Clement Hardin. He was a fine writer, a little more thoughtful and restrained
than some of the pulpsters, but he could still bring the fast-paced action when
he needed to. His last work was creating the Western series STAGECOACH STATION,
packaged by Book Creations Inc. and published by Bantam under the house-name
Hank Mitchum, and writing a number of the early novels in that series. As one
of the various Hank Mitchums myself, I’ve always been pleased that I got to
work on a series created by D.B. Newton.
But to get to “Scorpions of Silverado” at last, it’s set in the silver mining
boomtown of Leadville, Colorado. Bob Pryor and Celestino Mireles are sent for
by Dave Cook, the real-life founder of the Rocky Mountain Detective Agency, who
has been hired to uncover the leader of a criminal gang wreaking havoc in the
town. Pryor and Celestino do so, of course (the mastermind’s identity is no
secret to the reader, having been revealed early on), but not before some
shootouts, fistfights, a battle in an abandoned mine, and an attempted
lynching. H.A.W. Tabor, Leadville’s leading citizen, is another historical
figure who plays an important part in the story, although the bad guys are all
fictional. It’s fast-moving fun, pretty lightweight but very entertaining.
Also, while some modern readers might be offended by Celestino’s thick accent
and his sidekick status, he’s really the dominant figure in this novel, doing
most of the detective work and figuring out what’s really going on. I’ve always
liked Celestino. He’s much more than the comedy relief some might take him for.
Next up is “Snake Charmer”, a short story by Robert J. Hogan. Best remembered
for the G-8 series and other air war yarns, Hogan wrote a lot of Westerns, too,
and was good at them. This story about a mining company payroll robbery and an
old-timer who used to travel with a carnival is an entertaining story with some
nice twists.
Clay Randall, author of the novelette “Make a Bigger Boot Hill” in this issue,
was really Clifton Adams, one of the best of the hardboiled Western writers of
the Forties, Fifties, and Sixties. This tale about a Texas Ranger pursuing the
outlaws responsible for his wife’s death and catching up to them in a squalid
bordertown is one of the few misfires by him that I’ve read. The writing is
good and the characters are interesting, but the plot is pretty thin and
somehow the story just never really engaged me.
The novelette “Kill-Crazy Trail” is by Reeve Walker, a Thrilling Group house
name known to have been used by Walker A. Tompkins, Tom Curry, Charles N.
Heckelmann, and Chuck Martin. Other authors probably used it as well. Having
read the story under that name in this issue, I don’t know who wrote it, but I’m
fairly confident it wasn’t any of the authors previously associated with the
name unless possibly Heckelmann. It doesn’t read at all like the work of
Tompkins, Curry, or Martin. However, this tale of a young rancher forced by
circumstances and his own bad judgment to turn outlaw is a good one. Despite
the bloodthirsty title, it’s actually a rather mild, heartwarming yarn with
good characterization. I liked it quite a bit.
The issue wraps up with “Old Pete”, a short story by one of my favorite Western
authors, A. Leslie Scott, writing here under his A. Leslie pseudonym. The title
character is a roadrunner who plays a vital part in the showdown between a young
lawman and a gang of bank robbers. The story doesn’t have much of the flowery
description that’s a hallmark of Scott’s prose, but it does have some nice action
and humor. He could spin a yarn, that’s for sure.
Overall, this is a solid issue of THE RIO KID WESTERN. None of the stories are
great, but they’re all good. The Clifton Adams story is the weakest of the
bunch (there’s a sentence I’ve never written before and possibly never will
again), and it’s certainly not terrible, just not quite to my taste. Other
readers might like it the best because Adams has a really nice hardboiled
style. If you have this issue on your shelves, it’s well worth reading.
The place he chooses for sanctuary is an abandoned farm that belonged to the
late brother of Dick’s editor, who is also his best friend from childhood. Once
he gets out in that rural environment, Dick encounters a variety of colorful characters,
some of whom are not what they appear to be and all of whom have hidden agendas
of their own.
Now, you’d think that would be enough for a book by itself, wouldn’t you? But
Manning Lee Stokes, the author of THE GRAVE’S IN THE MEADOW, has other things
in mind. It’s like he started writing this novel with the intention of
springing a major plot twist every twenty or thirty pages. One of those twists
about the middle of the book is so shocking that it had me turning back a page
and going, “Wait . . . what?” And he keeps that up all the way to the end in
this tale of murder, blackmail, bank robbery, and double-cross after
double-cross. And the most amazing thing is that he makes all of it work.
Everything hangs together, and the whole crazy yarn is spun in such smooth
prose that I gulped it down in big chunks. THE GRAVE’S IN THE MEADOW is truly a
page-turner, all the way to the satisfying ending.
I’ve seen books like this referred to as “one damn thing after another”, and
that’s a pretty good description. In our house, when we’re watching some movie
or TV show and there’s a wild, over-the-top, almost ludicrous plot twist, we always
say, “Sure, why not?” Well, THE GRAVE’S IN THE MEADOW is a “Sure, why not?”
book. But as I said, Stokes makes it work, and ultimately, that’s all that
counts.
Stokes had a decent career in the Forties and Fifties writing mysteries,
Westerns, and soft-core sleaze novels under his own name and as Kermit Welles,
Kirk Westley, and Ford Worth. THE GRAVE’S IN THE MEADOW was published in
hardcover in 1959 by Arcadia House and reprinted in paperback in 1961 by Dell.
Arcadia House was primarily a library publisher, and because of that there’s no
sex or bad language in this novel, but it manages to be pretty sordid anyway. A
few years after it was published, Stokes went to work for book packager Lyle
Kenyon Engel and became one of Engel’s regular writers, turning out books in a
number of different house-name series, including Nick Carter, Killmaster; John
Eagle, Expeditor; the Aquanauts; and Richard Blade. I read all of Stokes’ Nick
Carter books back in high school and enjoyed them, although at the time I had
no idea he was the actual author, of course. He passed away in 1976.
I’d read so many good reviews of THE GRAVE’S IN THE MEADOW that I really
thought it would be difficult for the book to live up to its reputation. But
this is one of those rare cases where it actually does. This is a great
suspense novel, one of the best books I’ve read this year, and would be a fine
candidate for a reprint edition.
Callie’s triplet brother Joseph is a top private investigator, and when he lands the job of tracking down a fugitive who has disappeared into the thick Piney Woods of East Texas, Callie decides she’ll give her brother a hand with the case. Both Kingfishers are plunged into the middle of a deadly feud between rival crime families, and Callie quickly discovers that the real thing is even more dangerous than making action movies.
New York Times bestseller James Reasoner and critically acclaimed mystery author Livia J. Washburn team up for KINGFISHER P.I., the first in a new series of exciting, action-packed mystery novels that will leave you breathless with their suspense, adventure, and humor.
(This is the first book in a brand-new series that Livia and I have had a great time writing. It'll be out next month, and the e-book edition is available for pre-order on Amazon now. There'll be a trade paperback later on. I hope some of you will check it out and enjoy it.)
