Callaghen

Louis L'Amour took a break from range wars and rustlers in 1972. “Callaghen” is a departure from his patented shtick, setting the action within the ranks of the Army. It features 34-year old Callaghen, an Irish soldier who has fought internationally, and at one point served as a Sergeant. His abrasive views of command have tarnished his career, demoting him repeatedly to lowly private and an assignment to a remote fort in the Mojave desert – in the heart of Indian country. This fort is essentially a security detail protecting the road to Las Vegas and Vegas Springs. Callaghen is 20-years in and discharge papers are arriving late, so this security detail and the inability to retire leaves the character disgruntled. While Callaghen isn't exactly the most interesting guy, the action intensifies just enough to keep me flipping the page...while checking the number at the bottom.

The plot is silky thin when our protagonist discovers a treasure map on a dead lieutenant. Apparently this leads to a river of gold and astonishingly a slew of outlaws convinced that Callaghen knows where this treasure is. Whether the map actually leads to anything remains to be seen, but L'Amour works with what he has – Indians, outlaws, speculative treasure, desert and the mandatory female characters that Callaghen is protecting. There's also some back story between the female lead, a despicable commander and the main character...but really no one cares. The most interesting aspect to the story is the lack of water in the desert. I found this struggle the most fascinating. Eventually, guns do catch fire and there's some action in the desert and cliffs. 

I can't say anything overly negative or positive about this one. It was a western, it kept me company and L'Amour is a skilled writer (albeit one that elongates senseless scenes). Often I wonder if I really like L'Amour's writing or if all those years watching my father read him has planted some sort of nostalgic childhood reasoning that if Dad liked it...I do too. Maybe that's enough for anyone to like anything.

Wilderness #02 - Lure of the Wild

The second installment of the 'Wilderness' series (David Robbins as David Thompson) is another road show in which our hero, former NYC accountant Nate King, continues his lessons in frontier life while traveling on a horseback journey with a different mountain man mentor. 

In this installment, Nate’s teacher is a bard-quoting experienced frontiersman nicknamed Shakespeare. They are on their way to an annual rendezvous of trappers and mountain men when they encounter several varieties of Indian - both hostile and friendly. In fact, the whole novel is a series of violent, gory battles with Indians separated by a masterclass in 1800's Native American culture and norms taught by Shakespeare. Not knowing much about American Indian ways, I can only assume that the author did his homework and got it mostly right. In any case, there were plenty of interesting Indian factoids shoehorned in between the scalpings and the gun-play. 

Along the way, Nate also meets an Indian girl named Winona who has her eyes on Nate as possible husband material despite a vast cultural chasm. The possibility of feelings and romance between the two seemed unbelievable by modern standards, but I guess that was the whole point of the story-line.

“Lure of the Wild” is a great action novel, and the battle scenes are sufficiently violent and bloody to keep the reader hooked. The interpersonal drama between Nate and the Indians he encounters is never dull and the newly-introduced characters are compelling and nuanced. The only criticism is that the author seems to be taking his time in telling the overarching story of Nate’s evolution from dandy urban bookkeeper to master of the wilderness. I was excited to see what happens at the mountain man rendezvous, but it seems I’ll have to wait until book three to enjoy that story.

Wilderness #03 - Savage Rendezvous

This third novel in the long-running 'Wilderness' series (David Robbins as David Thompson) is very good, and as always it’s especially strong in its realism and historical detail. Dramatically, it’s also pretty solid, but it’s not quite up to the standard of the first two books in the series.

The 'Wilderness' novels are about a young mountain man in the 1820s (at this point he’s more of an apprentice mountain man) and his adventures in the Rocky Mountains. In “Savage Rendezvous”, our hero is looking forward to the annual gathering of trappers in the area to make some friends and buy supplies. The event is known informally as the Rendezvous, and this will be his first visit to one.

That foundation is promising and based on historical fact, but I didn’t feel it was really explored very well. Instead, our hero and his mentor arrive and are immediately beset by bullies for no real reason, leading to a succession of confrontations, fistfights and gun-play. All that testosterone keeps things from ever getting dull, but for some reason I couldn’t really engage with this part of the story. It isn’t bad, but the bullies are more annoying than dramatically compelling, and we’re stuck with them for the rest of the novel.

Far more involving are interludes with hostile Indians (always a hallmark of this series) and these tense cat-and-mouse encounters are very suspenseful. There’s also a pretty good twist at the end. Overall, “Savage Rendezvous” isn’t the best that this series can offer, but even a second-tier 'Wilderness' book is mighty good reading.

The Vigilante #02 - Los Angeles: Detour to a Funeral

Robert Lory's 'Vigilante' series continues with 1975's “Los Angeles: Detour to a Funeral”. This book is set just one week after the events that transpired in the series debut, “New York: An Eye for an Eye”. In that story, protagonist Joe Madden watches helplessly as his wife is assaulted and killed on a late night subway ride. Madden, an ordinary guy, takes to the streets with a kitchen knife to kill low-grade street thugs. That book's end had his employer, a mid-level engineering firm, sending him to the West Coast for another project. Now, Madden takes to L.A.'s night-life in this entertaining follow-up.

The beginning of the book has Madden just finishing up some odds and ends in New York's East Village. He comes to the aid of an older man, disposing of two thugs with the business end of his .38 revolver. In one of the series' many philosophical moments, the rescued man challenges Madden's technique by declaring the thugs were young men that didn't deserve killing. This mirrors some of Madden's own self-doubts in the prior book, magnifying his dismissal of morality in pursuit of instant gratification.

Madden's exploits in Los Angeles are nonsensical, but an unnecessary requirement to introduce a plot. With no logistical planning, Madden simply strolls the back streets looking for any wrongdoers. It's literally the bully-buffet, running the gambit from thieves to pimps. Soon, Madden runs across an abused prostitute and attempts to connect with her. After instigating a reunion between the girl and her parents, Madden targets the brothel and the establishment's madam – an overly obese woman with the obligatory name of Big Mama. The book is ultimately just Madden targeting Big Mama, rescuing whores and stopping an acid rock artist from spreading heroin. 

While certainly elementary and far removed from the more gritty, well-established titles like 'The Executioner', 'Death Merchant' and 'The Butcher', Lory's 'Vigilante' is a likable hero that connects well with the average reader. Fans of the genre can see the rough edges of genre specific boundaries, but it's narrative, as tragic and as flawed as it is, makes for a really enjoyable read. I can't say enough good things about this series thus far. 

Next stop, San Francisco.

The Hitman #01 - Chicago Deathwinds

Norman Winski's 'The Hitman' was a three book series released in 1984 through the Pinnacle publishing house. It's not to be confused with the 1970s series of the same name by Kirby Carr. The series debuted with “Chicago Deathwinds” and introduces us to Dirk Spencer, described as “a hard, mean, cool and sophisticated” vigilante that doesn't embody the traditional definition of hitman - someone paid to kill someone. In this series, Spencer isn't paid anything. He already has more money than Tony Stark and kills the bad guys as a hobby.

For validity, Winski tells us that Spencer is the son of a wealthy entrepreneur and a West Point graduate. He served in Vietnam as a fighting officer and single-handily took out an entire North Vietnamese patrol. Since service, he's personified the rich playboy – yacht, plane, helicopter, penthouse, Lamborghini and the sexual prowess of a bucking stallion. It's only when he learns that his African-American friend has been murdered that he assumes the moniker of “The Hitman”.

In an ode to pulp fiction, Spencer plays the vengeful nighttime warrior while maintaining his daytime activities as spoiled rich kid. He can't let anyone into the inner circle, including the women he loves and his own father. Winski does a great job building in that inner turmoil, brimming over in an emotional argument between Spencer and a best friend. It's this part of the story-line that's honestly the most engaging. The rest is totally bonkers.

Winski writes Spencer as a pulp hero. He's the “Doc Savage” of vigilantes with the absolute best ability to fight, fly, drive and screw. In 184 pages we learn that Spencer is at peak performance and skill-level for everything. He flies his helicopter and planes with Blue Angels talent, races like Mario Andretti and handles guns and missiles like Ironman. He's always able to overcome impossible odds while maintaining a spoiled kid's mentality. In one humorous scene he can't get the bad guy (a racist ultra right-wing nominee for President) so he takes out all of his frustration by ravaging two high-dollar hookers for three hours. So, what's the problem?

Winski could have slimmed this to 140 pages but pads the story with a dull narrative. It takes a strenuous amount of effort to fully digest 7-10 pages of gun descriptions or setting up the time, location, scenery and what Spencer is clothed in. There's a sloth-like pace in the West Virginia portion of the story and I had to take constant breaks...for days. It's permeated with bad dialogue, a cookie-cutter villain and a ridiculous hero that can't be this perfect. There's much better books out there. “The Hitman” is not the shit man.

Ruff Justice #02 - Night of the Apache

One of the lesser-known 1980s western series was 'Ruff Justice,' written by Paul Lederer under the pen-name Warren T. Longtree and published by Signet. It’s centered on a former Army scout named Ruffin T. Justice who continues to do scouting on a freelance basis, which turns out to mean everything from leading Easterners through the wilderness to tracking down renegade Apaches. 

That latter specialty is what gets the wheels turning in the second book of the series, “Night of the Apache”. I had high hopes for this novel for two reasons. First, some of the best series westerns I’ve read have been about dangerous Apaches--- Edge #3 “Apache Death”, Gunn #8 “Apache Arrows” and Jim Steel #3 “Bloody Gold” among them. Secondly, I’d read the first 'Ruff Justice' book last year and found it to be an unexpected gem. “Sudden Thunder” had brisk pacing, muscular western action, effective plot twists and a very unique narrative element (the party Ruff leads through the mountains includes a covered wagon occupied by a catatonic woman in black, sitting in a rocking chair). 

Anyway, “Night of the Apache” was a disappointment. The Apache in question is hard for Ruff to apprehend, but he’s otherwise not that formidable. And he’s not even the focus of the story! The real plot is about a conspiracy to keep supplies from reaching an Indian reservation. That’s basically it. Well, that and a few sex scenes featuring Ruff and the frisky young wife of the local Army fort commander. The author tries to keep things moving, and the final thirty pages are very well done, but it’s hard to work yourself into a reading frenzy when the story has such a “who cares” plot.

You know how sometimes you read a book and you find yourself constantly checking which page you’re on, and calculating how many pages are left before the end? When you’ll be free of it and you can move on to something more interesting? This is that kind of book.

Josh Ford #03 - The Man Who Burned Hell!

Brent Towns' talents as a western aficionado are showcased with his newest novel, a rowdy, rough-and-tumble adventure entitled "The Man Who Burned Hell!". Towns has used a variety of pseudonyms throughout his career, including B.S. Dunn, Jake Henry and Sam Clancy. The Australian author has penned 17 westerns, including a continuation of Ben Bridges' 'Company C' series. “The Man Who Burned Hell!” (using Clancy), is the third installment of the 'Josh Ford' series. Prior books in the series are “Valley of Thunder” and “Even Marshals Hang!”. In talking with the author, Towns advised me that these books were written as stand-alone novels but feature the same protagonist, U.S. Marshal Josh Ford. Fans of the genre know how we systematically sequence, number and label everything, so it only seems fitting that I deem this "Josh Ford #3".

The prologue provides a gritty and violent premonition of the book's fiery ending. In it, the town of Serenity has destructively transformed into a burning ruin. There's very little dialogue in this opening sequence except one remarkable question from U.S. Marshal Bass Reeves to his son Josh Ford - “What the Hell have you done?” Obviously, “The Man Who Burned Hell!” did exactly that, but how did Serenity become Hell?

Reeves receives word that Serenity has been taken over by a cartel of cutthroats. The alliance is led by saloons owner Ike Cordis and includes local mine boss Justus Harper and whorehouse operator Camilla. Reeves, busy with his own town's escalating violence, sends his son Ford to Serenity to investigate. Solo, Ford plans to end the cartel and liberate the town from it's oppressors. 

As Ford starts to acquaint himself with Serenity, a loose synopsis of his background is formed. Reeves left both Ford and his mother to join the war. After Reeves fails to return in a timely fashion, Ford rides out to kill his father for abandoning them. In an untold sequence of events, Ford somehow joined Reeves as a U.S. Marshal. I don't sense any hostility between the two, so perhaps it just wasn't a developed story that needed telling. That same approach is taken with Ford and Camilla. They were former lovers, and at some point in their heated relationship Ford was forced to kill Camilla's brother. 

In talking with Towns, he advised me these events aren't included or explained in further detail in the two prior books. So, it stands to reason that his “stand-alone” approach is truly that. Nothing more, nothing less. While these books are connected with the same central character, they don't follow any sort of strict continuance. 

Towns' writing is reminiscent of William W. Johnstone's early 'Smoke Jensen' tales. It's blunt, well-told and should please fans of the 50s and 60s television western formula. The author's love of that time period is conveyed perfectly – well defined heroes and villains with clear and concise problems. Ford's fight is our fight, the proverbial good versus evil struggle that all of us can relate too. The action comes in waves, sequencing a chain of events that ultimately comes full circle to the book's descriptive post-destruction prologue. It's a fitting conclusion to the “downfall of the bully” narrative.

You can get a copy through the publisher, Black Horse, or Amazon.