Paperback Warrior - Episode 124

This podcast episode features William R. Cox, a prolific author of over 1,000 pulp stories known for his crime-fiction, sports, and western novels. It also includes a review of a 1967 vintage suspense-thriller by John Farris. Listen today! Stream below or on YouTube HERE. Download the episode HERE.

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Paperback Warrior Primer - Bill Gulick

Grover C. Gulick (1916-2013), known as Bill Gulick, wrote a ton of western stories in the pulp magazines in the 1940s and 1950s. His career is laced with both fiction and non-fiction, marked by winning two coveted Spur Awards, earning him a two-year presidency of Western Writers of America, and receiving accolades from the Cowboy Hall of Fame. I covered Gulick's life and career in a podcast HERE, but wanted to provide a visual text outlining his life and literary work.

Gulick was born in 1916 in Kansas City, Missouri. As a child, Gulick was an avid reader with weekly trips to the library. By the age of five he was reading Zane Grey and pulp western magazines. In high school he wrote a story modernizing Julius Caesar with a gritty underworld of Chicago gangsters. He graduated high school in 1934, a time when America had been thrust into the Great Depression. Gulick delivered newspapers, did collections on delinquent utility bills, and worked at a drug store to help the family make ends meet. 

Gulick enrolled at the University of Oklahoma, played baseball, and as a sophomore he entered a writing competition and saw his poem win top prize. During college, Gulick worked as a power line installer and also took a job selling appliances for Montgomery Ward. Both of these jobs expanded Gulick's world and allowed him to see a good portion of the Midwest. Hoping to achieve a career in writing, Gulick entered a Professional Writing School in 1940 and he sold his first story for $10 to a law officer magazine titled The Peace Officer. He then reached out to Popular Publications in New York about a western story he wrote. They published the short, “The Kid That Rode with Death”, in New Western Magazine and paid him $30. At this point Gulick considered himself to be a full-fledged professional writer. 

Gulick moved to Brownwood, Texas to be a caretaker for a couple's cabin on Lake Brownwood. It was here that he had the opportunity for solitude, a time he used to polish up on his writing and to get completely devoted to his style. He wanted to write for the slick magazines. He later spent a lot of time with pulp writer Foster Harris. It was Harris that encouraged Gulick to use his experiences installing power lines to write stories about hardened blue-collar working men. Harris explained that he used his own work experience in the oil fields to pen stories in Argosy, Blue Book, and Adventure. Gulick took the advice to heart and wrote a story titled “You Gotta Be Hard” about a lineman who saves a fellow worker from being electrocuted. He sold it to Adventure for $75 and it was published in their August 1942 issue. These stories are what Gulick refers to as his "high-line stories" about the dangerous industry and hardened men that worked on the power lines. That same year he had his story “The Saga of Mike Shannon” published in Liberty Magazine. The publisher paid him $350 for the story, which was his biggest payout to date. 

Gulick was classified as 4-F during World War 2 due to his bout with Polio years before the war started. In 1943, Gulick moved to New York City so he could be closer to the editors and publishers he was dealing with. By this point Gulick had sold stories to Big-Book Western, .44 Western, Ace-High Western, Texas Rangers, 10 Story Western, Liberty, and Adventure.  

Gulick became acquainted with Rogers Terrill who was working as an editor for Henry and Harry Steeger, the owners of Popular Publications. At the height of the pulp boom the Steegers had 33 magazines circulating. Each magazine sold on average 200,000 newsstand copies for a dime each, so the difference between showing a profit and incurring a loss was small. According to Gulick's autobiography, the Steegers were earning about $300 net profit per month on each magazine. Their top western writer was Walt Coburn. He had a story in just about every western magazine - either a 25,000 word novel, a 12,000 word novelette, or a 5,000 word short story. 

Rogers Terrill once sent Gulick a letter stating that his stories were good and that they would continue fetching on average of $280. He explained they were competent but not terribly original. He encouraged Gulick to stop writing run of the mill pot-boilers and to use his talent to write better work. Gulick went back to thinking of himself as more of a slick writer and found more stories being published in Liberty and Saturday Evening Post through the 1940s and 1950s. He was also published in Esquire, Blue Book, Collier's, and Nation's Business. By 1944, Gulick found that he had enough of New York and had met and introduced himself to enough publishers and editors. He first moved to Oklahoma before relocating to Tacoma, Washington. From there he continued to sell to Liberty magazine making $750 per story. The rejects from Liberty funneled down to the pulp magazines at less money. 

In 1946, Gulick discovered something really interesting about a Lone Ranger comic strip that was running in Seattle's Post-Intelligencer paper. The Lone Ranger story was plagiarized from a Gulick short published in 10 Story Western Magazine. He cut out the strips each day until he had the whole story and then mailed it to Popular Publications who agreed that it was plagiarism. Eventually, the Lone Ranger's legal firm settled with Gulick paying $250 both to him and Popular Publications. In a funny send off to the settlement, Gulick volunteered to write Lone Ranger stories but his request was ignored. 

Gulick met his wife while working as a house manager for a Tacoma Theater Company and the two moved to New York. After meeting with the editor of Saturday Evening Post, Erd Brandt, Gulick was pitched the idea of writing his first serial. Gulick knew that was huge money as Ernest Haycox and Luke Short had both earned upwards to $50,000 for a serial. Brandt wanted a historical Pacific Northwest setting for the serial. In his research, Gulick became fascinated with the history of the emigrants into the Washington and Idaho Territories from the Oregon Trail Days. Gulick used the concept to write an 80,000 word novel titled Bend of the Snake. It was Gulick's first full-length novel, however when he pitched it to the Post as a serial they rejected it for being too long. He submitted the novel to Doubleday but it was rejected for a lack of violence. Houghton Mifflin published the book in 1950 and Gulick received a $5,000 movie option. Universal-International bought the film rights, changed the title to Bend of the River, and cast James Stewart in the lead role. 

Gulick settled into writing more full-length novels including A Drum Calls West and A Thousand for the Cariboo. Around this same time an anthology of Gulick's mountain man western short stories was collected into an omnibus paperback titled The Mountain Men. 

In 1953. Gulick joined the Western Writers of America, the brainchild of author Nelson Nye. In 1955 Gulick ran for President of the organization, a position he held in 1956 and 1957. 

Up until the late mid-1950s, Gulick's novels were being published as hardcovers. But, Popular Library offered Gulick the opportunity to write paperback originals. The author wrote Showdown in the Sun, a paperback purchased by Famous Artists, a Hollywood Film company that paid $13,500 for the book. Gulick also began selling rights to his short stories to television shows. In 1961, Gulick sold his story "Where the Wind Blows Free" to Saturday Evening Post for $2500. Gulick wrote novels for Doubleday including They Came to a Valley, which won the Cowboy Hall of Fame Western Heritage Award as Best Western Historical Novel of the Year and Hallelujah Trail, which the Mirisch Brothers bought film rights for $85,000. The movie was released in 1964 and starred Burt Lancaster, Donald Pleasance, and Brian Keith. 

Gulick also flourished in the non-fiction realm as well. He wrote the books Snake River Country and Chief Joseph Country as non-fiction historical accounts. Gulick also wrote a western for Doubleday titled Trails West about a gold mine in Hells Canyon and anti-Chinese riots in the 1880s. The book, which was published in 1979, did well but hinted to Gulick that the western book market had dwindled significantly. 

In 1988, Gulilck's western trilogy was caught up in a publishing feud between Doubleday and Gulick. The publisher wanted each book to be trimmed from 100,000 words to 85,000. The publisher also disagreed with Gulick's overall title for the trilogy as Northwest Destiny. Doubleday published each of the books in 1988 - the first in May titled Distant Trails, the second in June titled Gathering Storm, and the third in July titled Lost Wallowa. The publisher sold 5,000 copies of each book to libraries without any promotion and then let the books go out of print. Gulick was able to have the rights reverted back to him from Doubleday. With permission, Berkley published the books in paperback format.

Bill Gulick died at the age of 97 in 2013 in Walla Walla, Washington. In his autobiography, his final conclusion stated this:

"What the world of writing will be in time to come, I cannot predict, other than to say it will change, as it has in my lifetime. Despite the proliferation in the methods of communication that has taken place during the last sixty-four years, the nation as a whole is no more literate now than it was then, when almost everybody who had gone to school at all could read at the fourth-grade level, whereas now we have students in college who cannot do as well. Back in the 1950s, when I complained to Carl Brandt, Sr. about the way the TV monster that had invaded our living rooms was threatening to replace my beloved Saturday Evening Post, he said, 'Don’t worry about it, Bill. What you should understand is that the American public has a great capacity for accepting a new medium of entertainment without forsaking the old.' In any event, it is time for a new generation of writers to replace mine. All I can say is, 'I wish you well'."

Gulick's last published short story was in 1982 and his last book was published in 2008.

You can obtain many of Bill Gulick's vintage books HERE.

Paperback Warrior Podcast - Episode 120

In this episode, Eric explores the life and career of Lou Cameron, a comic book artist who became a prolific paperback writer and pioneer in the adult western genre. He also reviews a Booktuber, showcases his latest used book acquisitions, and discusses the newest issue of Men's Adventure Quarterly. Stream below, watch on YouTube HERE, or download HERE.

Listen to "Episode 120: Lou Cameron" on Spreaker.

Carmody #01 - The Slavers

Peter McCurtin’s Carmody series was a knockoff of the Lassiter western series written by several authors, including McCurtin, under the house name Jack Slade. The first in the series was released in 1970 and remains available today as a cheap ebook.

Carmody is differentiated by other western series titles by the first-person hardboiled narration from our hero. McCurtin is clearly trying to mimic the popular narrative style of Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer that was selling quite a few books at the time.

As a main character, Carmody is a benevolent outlaw who is thrust into situations where he is forced to set aside his criminal nature and be a hero. In The Slavers, it’s 1885 in New Mexico and Carmody reconnects with an old buddy who discloses that their mutual friend, a Navajo Indian (a Christian!) was killed and his wife and daughter has been enslaved. Together, they devise a plan for Carmody to save the girls.

McCurtin does a nice job giving readers a quick history regarding the legality and practice of taking and holding Indian slaves. Short version: Enslavement of Native Americans was completely forbidden, but not always strictly enforced, by 1885. The Civil War is long over, Santa Fe had rudimentary plumbing, and an early automobile had been invested in Europe. This was a new era.

All roads lead to the involvement of the town’s wealthy rancher, Thatcher McKim, and his goons fall like dominos under the hail of bullets from Carmody. The tough guy dialogue and patter throughout the novel was simply superb. The explosive set-pieces split the difference between classic westerns and the violent novels forthcoming in series titles like Edge.

Overall, Carmody is a hero worth reading, and The Slavers made me happy to have a new old series to collect and enjoy. Get the paperbacks HERE and digital HERE.

The First Fast Draw

The First Fast Draw, give or take a book, was Louis L'Amour's 20th career full-length. The novel was first published by Bantam in 1959 and then numerous printings since then in both paperback and collector's hardcover. 

Cullen Baker has just returned to his childhood home in Bowie County, Texas after years of living in the wild frontier of American's western territories. The old homeplace lies in a dense jungle of swamp that has nearly eroded Baker's small farm. But, his biggest threat comes by way of the Reconstruction, an aggressive movement by the Union to regulate and reestablish the Southern states after America's bloody Civil War. Baker, a former Confederate soldier, left the War prematurely after disagreements with the leadership and nature of the South's tactics. 

Trying to turn the homeplace back into a farm comes with many obstacles including the aggressive regulators, bullies from Baker's past, and a hard-headed land grabber named Barlow. But, Baker also finds love in the arms of a woman named Katy, who draws a number of fast gunmen wishing to court her. 

After taking a number of beatings Baker eventually begins practicing a fast draw day and night. His smooth lightning prowess with a gun may be his only advantage against the overwhelming odds forcing him into a fight. Thankfully, Baker finds a few allies that join his side for the fight. L'Amour throws in a series of tumbles including numerous gunfights, a jailbreak, an attempted hanging, and lots of dialogue about this unusual time in American history. 

The First Fast Draw is drawn loosely from the life of real outlaw “Wild” Bill Longley. L'Amour's storytelling, although often repetitive, is brimming over with details about the outdoors, this swampy area of Texas, U.S. History, and the details concerning a handful of characters. My only real problem with the book was the number of characters. I had a difficult time remembering which side some of the characters were on. Beyond that, The First Fast Draw is a breezy and enjoyable reading experience. Get it HERE.

Conversations - Jackie L. Hatfield, Jr.

In this exclusive video, Eric sits down with Jack Hatfield, the direct descendant of "Devil Anse" Hatfield, one of the most iconic participants in the infamous and violent Hatfield McCoy feud. Jack talks about a new publication titled "An American Vendetta: Legend of the Hatfield McCoy Feud" and its original format in 1889. Additionally, Jack explains his family's bloody roots, the rivalry between West Virginia and Kentucky, the key instigator Frank Phillips, and the Hatfield McCoy Foundation and Museum. Stream the audio only portion HERE or any streaming platform. Download audio HERE. You can watch the video interview below or on YT HERE.

Paperback Warrior Hits Music City, USA

Is there more than just country music in Music City? Nashville, TN will never be the same when Eric hits an antique mall, Half Price Books, and Landmark Booksellers in search of rare paperbacks. There's book covers, authors, novel history, world famous hot chicken, the iconic Grand 'Ole Opry, and the fake Parthenon in this must-see shopping spree! View below or directly on the YouTube channel HERE.

Paperback Warrior Podcast - Episode 115

It's another investigative Paperback Warrior episode! In this feature, Eric delves into the murky life and career of crime-fiction, science-fiction, and western writer Louis Trimble. The noir author wrote over 80 novels and dozens of stories for the pulp magazines in the 1940s, but was mostly known in Europe for a controversial book celebrated by the Soviets. Plus, Eric reviews a creepy 1959 Southern Gothic novel titled Annalisa and reviews one of his favorite YouTube channels. Stream the episode below or on YT HERE. Also, you can download HERE. 

Listen to "Episode 115: Louis Trimble" on Spreaker.

Paperback Warrior Podcast - Episode 113

In this episode, Eric heads out west to examine the career of Bill Gulick, a prolific western writer that contributed to the pulp western, adventure magazine, and paperback original market. In addition, Eric provides an emotional farewell to his friend, the late great Stephen Mertz, looks at the upcoming Hard Case Crime publications, and reviews a brand new crime-noir paperback from Black Gat Books. Stream below or on YouTube HERE. Download HERE.

Black Hound of Death

Robert E. Howard's weird fiction story “Black Hound of Death” first appeared in the November 1936 issue of Weird Tales. It was also included in the Summer 1976 issue of Dark Phantasms, the 1978 Sphere collection Weird Tales Vol. 1, and countless other volumes housing weird fiction and Howard stories. My review is from the Trails in Darkness 1996 paperback collection from Baen.

The story takes place at night in a dense forested area in the American southeast. While Howard doesn't specifically state Kirby Garfield is a lawman, it is implied based on his actions in the story. Through a first-person perspective, Garfield explains to readers that he's in the part of the forest to deliver a message. A man named Braxton has escaped from the law leaving a “ghastly toll of dead behind him.” Garfield believes Braxton is in the area and he is riding on horseback to warn a reclusive man named Richard Brent of the potential danger. 

On his way he stumbles upon a man begging for help after being ripped to shreds by some sort of animal. He screams at Garfield saying that “HE” done it. He relays a story to Garfield on how he was hired by a white man (wearing a mask) as a guide to Brent's house. But, somewhere along the way the mask slipped away and the man went on the attack. The man later dies in front of Garfield after providing him a warning to leave the area.

The book ventures into a pulpy horror nightmare as Garfield and a few stragglers venture to Brent's house and prepare for the flesh-ripping forest menace to appear. Of course there is an explanation on who – or what – is killing people and how it all ties to the fugitive Braxton. I can't give away any more details because it would inevitably spoil the reading fun. Trust me, the story is worth pursuing and delivers a hair-raising creature-feature experience. Recommended! Get the vintage copy of Trails in Darkness HERE.

Riverboat

Colorado resident Douglas Hirt has been an accomplished author of western fiction since 1991. Later, he threw his talent for historical fiction into a three-book series about a Mississippi riverboat during the 1800s and the ensemble cast of characters traveling on the steamship. The first novel in the series, Riverboat, was initially published in 1995 and remains available today from Wolfpack Publishing.

The Tempest Queen is the riverboat in question running up and down the Mississippi River filled with passengers and limited cargo in the years before the Civil War. Every passenger has a story, and Hirt leverages that reality into a Love Boat/Fantasy Island 300-page ensemble epic of criss-crossing and overlapping stories.

The captain is William Hamilton who has been on the river for 30 years and finally has a ship of his own. For this journey, he’ll be headed down the Mississippi for a week to The Tempest Queen’s home port of Baton Rouge. The boat is a football field long with multiple decks and 63 passengers plus crew. The ship is used for human transport but has many of the amenities of a Carnival Cruise lines and the passengers live in luxury on the journey.

My favorite passenger is the raffish professional gambler, Dexter McCay. There’s also an interesting subplot about a runaway slave who was captured in the woods and is now being transported in chains back to his cruel master’s estate by a loathsome and violent slave catcher. This sparks the novel’s action scenes and the author does a nice job using this as a vehicle to explore the variety of opinions regarding human enslavement in the run-up to the Civil War.

At 300-pages, the novel was a bit overlong and meandered at times, but this is a fine historical novel definitely worth reading. I’m thrilled that Wolfpack Press re-discovered it for modern audiences, and I’m looking forward to the next installment.

Get Riverboat HERE.

Kid Crimson #01 - Gunpowder Mountain

According to his bio, Jarret Keene is an assistant professor in the Department of English at UNLV where he teaches American literature and the graphic novel. His published books include Hammer of the Dogs, and the middle grade books Decade and Survive: The Attack on Pearl Harbor and Heroes of World War II: 25 True Stories of Unsung Heroes Who Fought for Freedom. His newest venture is a series of westerns starring a Nevada fighting man deemed Kid Crimson. The series debut sports the explosive title of Gunpowder Mountain.

Needless to say, I've read my fair share of action-adventure books. Occassionally I'll find one line in a book or novel that describes the intensity of both the story and the character. Keene places this literary gem in the middle of the pages:

"I'd never fought for my life outnumbered during an evening windstorm alongside a stone killer with only one good arm."

This quote from Kid Crimson speaks volumes and loosely summarizes one of the more harrowing scenes in the book. 

Keene introduces Crimson to readers by providing dark snippets of his childhood in Georgia. His father is described as a ruthless adversary (I'm anticipating an epic future showdown) that taught him that violence was the only language spoken. Due to Crimson's harsh upbringing, he now serves as a gun-for-hire in Virginia City, a westward mining town.  To know Crimson also means you know his colorful friends, the townspeople he is sworn to protect, and his lover.

First, the closest thing Crimson has to a real father is the town's undertaker, an older man named Grover. Crimson sleeps in Grover's storage shed and enjoys reading Homer's Iliad by the dim light of a kerosene lamp. His friend is a Native-American warrior named Snake. His lover is Poppy, a businesswoman who gently cures illness at an opium den (aptly titled Sure Cure) she owns and operates. Crimson is like a father to a young shoeshine boy named Ezra. Crimson's lifegoal is to save enough money so he can bring Poppy and Ezra to California to buy an orchard and peacefully grow fruit for the rest of his life. But, there's plenty of blood and bullets before that goal is reached. Crimson's Colt Army Model 1860 and a Sharps 50 will bring the pain.

The debut novel's central plot has the town preparing for the surprising arrival of President Lincoln. His appearance in town is to motivate the miners and community to work harder supplying more silver - more silver means more Union guns. While Lincoln will supply his own guard complete with U.S. Marshals, the town's premier businessman has hired Crimson to employ his own small task force to provide additional security on the street. This will hopefully extinguish any potential security breaches. Thankfully, Keene provides those security breaches to allow Crimson plenty of iron-fisted action. 

However, Gunpowder Mountain is stuffed with another exciting plot. Before Lincoln's arrival, another businessman has hired Crimson to be a stagecoach agent. But, this isn't any ordinary stagecoach. This is a hydrogen-generating inflation wagon that the man hopes to use with a giant balloon. In an interesting history lesson, it's explained that the balloon was a failed project by the Confederacy to enhance their spy intelligence. Their failure will now generate a lucrative entertainment industry by providing balloon rides to paying customers. But, as you can imagine, things don't go as planned and Crimson ends up teaming with a sadistic nemesis to retrieve the wagon from outlaws. 

As much as the term "action-packed" is strewn around, I have to utilize the term here as a valid description of the book.  It isn't the traditional western, but more of a Wild Wild West televison theme crossed with Ben Haas's Fargo. I believe that is the best approach considering the restraints and redundancy of the common 125-year old genre tropes. This series debut is one long action sequence from beginning to end. Whether Crimson is fighting drunks at the Bloody Nugget, firing off a unique bow-and-grappling hook weapon to retrieve a speeding wagon, or diffusing explosive devices set to topple a rugged mountain, Keene's combination of lovable characters and dastardly villains makes for a rip-roar reading experience. This one is highly recommended.

Get your copy HERE.

The Dead Remember

The August, 1936 issue of Argosy featured a horror western short-story titled “The Dead Remember”. The author was Robert E. Howard, a veteran of both westerns and horror stories. Howard was closely linked with Weird Tales along side his contemporaries in H.P. Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith. He made $17.50 for the submission. Since then, the story has circulated in collections like Horror Times Ten (Berkley 1967), Pigeons from Hell (Ace 1979), and The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard (Del Rey 2008). My version is in a paperback called Trails in Darkness, originally published in June 1996 by Baen. 

This 12-page story features a rough 'n ready cowhand named Jim Gordon. One night he visits an acquaintance, an African-American man named Joel and his wife Jezebel. Joel and Jim begin shooting craps and drinking tequila and Joel takes all of Jim's money. The obligatory accusation of cheating arises and Jim fatally shoots Joel twice in the belly. Jezebel runs out and attempts to fire an old musket, but it misfires and Jim fatally shoots Jezebel in the chest. In her dying words, she screams this curse at Jim:

“You've killed Joel and you've killed me, but by God, you won't live to brag about it. I curse you by the big snake and the black swamp and the white cock. Before this day rolls around again you'll be branding the devil's cows in Hell. You'll see, I'll come to you when the time's ripe and ready.”

It is these chilling final words that haunt Jim. Soon he becomes paranoid and begins having accidents that nearly kill him. In the story's finale, there is a hint of a supernatural entity that comes for him. Whether it was or wasn't is in the eye of the beholder. I'd like to think it was supernatural. 

These types of “curse you” horror stories are a dime-a-dozen, but Howard sure had a knack for reeling the reader into the macabre. What makes this story interesting is the fact that it is presented in a series of letters by the various characters that interact with Jim through the story. These are all presented in a detailed way that doesn't reveal everything at once. As the letters are presented from different points of view, it is up to the reader to ascertain what is really happening. 

If you like your horror westerns then don't let this one slip your memory. After all, the dead remember. 

Buy a copy of this book HERE

Edge #04 - Killer's Breed

The Edge series by George Gilman (Terry Harknett, 1936-2019) promises to be “The Most Violent Westerns in Print,” but the fourth installment, Killer’s Breed from 1974, is actually a flashback origin story documenting Edge’s adventures fighting in the American Civil War.

The paperback begins in the Post-Civil War era when Josiah “Edge” Hedges finds himself recuperating from a near-death experience where his life as a Union soldier is flashing before his eyes for the heart of the novel.

And with the turn of the page, the reader is back in June 1861 along the Ohio-West Virginia border with Union Cavalry Lieutenant Joe Hedges. He’s serving under Major General George McClellon and his troops are marching into the Battle of Phillipi in what is now West Virginia, the first land combat of the war. The author describes the fighting scenes with vivid portrayals of violence and gore, just like he does in the western novels of the series.

From battle to battle Edge rides with his unit, and the reader gets to watch him harden as person while making smart tactical decisions for himself and the men under his command. It’s difficult to understate the skull-crushing violence and spattered blood and brain tissue depicted in the pages of each battle. Consider yourself warned.

Overall, this was a very satisfying war novel that did a fine job depicting the chaos and brutality of battles on the ground. It wasn’t much of a western, but if a gory fictional chronicle of Civil War combat sounds appealing, you can’t do much better.

Buy a copy of this book HERE

Hangman's Territory

Jack M. Bickham (1930-1997) wrote predominantly westerns during his career while also teaching writing at the University of Oklahoma. Hangman’s Territory was half of a 1961 Ace Double later reprinted as a stand-alone paperback.

Our hero is Eck Jackson and he’s on his way to Rimrock, Montana at the request of a friend. The town has been taken over by Ebeneezer Taunt, who is acting as a self-appointed judge, jury and executioner along with a phalanx of gunmen. Taunt has a hard-on for hanging and has erected a six-rope gallows in the center of town to kill a half-dozen men with one lever pull. To bolster the credibility of his fiefdom, Taunt is importing an Ohio lawyer named John Powers to be his public prosecutor.

When we meet Powers, he’s actually an honest and earnest lawyer who accepts the job remotely with a legitimate interest in bringing law and order to a western town. He packs up his wife and heads west to become a public servant to the people of Rimrock. Will he buy-into Taunt’s perverted version of justice or will he stand up for what is right?

Bubbling under the surface of the tensions is a conflict between sheep herders and cattle farmers. Both groups want to use the same public lands for grazing, but the valley upon which the town sits just isn’t big enough to accommodate both the cattle people and the sheep people. In the world of western fiction, this is what is known as a “range war” when things turn violent. For his part, Judge Taunt, his lawman, and his hangman are all siding with the cattlemen.

The comic relief of the novel lies in the character of Boom Boom O’Malley, a redheaded ruffian explosives man who dresses in crazy outfits and is always looking for a fight. The author renamed and rebranded the character later in his career for his Wildcat O’Shea successful series of westerns written under the name Jeff Clinton (Hat Tip to the Six-Gun Justice website for also noticing the same thing).

The author brings all the characters together for an actioned-packed conflict that’s both exciting and violent. Overall, this was a very satisfying, quick-read western and an easy recommendation to fans of the genre. Bickham was a pro whose books deserve to be reprinted and remembered.

Buy a copy of this book HERE.

Apache Wells

According to the Cutting Edge Books author page, Robert Steelman (1914-1994) worked for the Army as a civil electronics technician from 1936-1949 before publishing his first of many westerns in 1956. According to the author's papers at the University of Wyoming, one his earliest manuscripts was originally titled Road to the Wells. It was published by Ballantine in 1959 using the revised title Apache Wells. Cutting Edge Books have released a new version of the book in both ebook and paperback formats.

It's 1876 and seventeen-year old Joey is traveling with a wagon train across Arizona Territory. Along with his older brothers Saul and Dave, Joey's destination is the fabled golden land of California. While the perilous trek is long and dusty, the most dangerous aspect of the trip is found within. Both Saul and Dave become embroiled in a bitter rivalry concerning Saul's young wife Eda. Confined in a hostile territory ripe with Apache attacks and savagery, Dave and Eda depart to city life in Tucson, leaving Saul enraged. He decides to forego the trip to California and instead begins to carve out a homestead in Apache Wells.

Steelman's plotting is superb when Joey is forced to choose sides between his warring brothers. After an argument with Saul, Joey heads to Tucson where he is robbed by a prostitute and her pimp. Left penniless, he heads back to Saul to help him defend his newly built homestead against the raids of Apache attacks. This propulsive plot device delivers a frantic pace as readers are thrust into these violent encounters. Saul is forced to protect his young brother while also attempting to build a fortified defense against the raiders. There is an exceptional amount of detail spent on planning and defending the attacks, which I found added a tremendous sense of realism. 

However, the other plot point that Steelman cleverly balances is a familiar one – the inevitable traditional western story of land grabbing. In this case, it's a land baron that is controlling the town's businesses and assets. He needs Saul's newly acquired land to host his new shipment of cattle. When Dave agrees to side with the land baron, Joey finds himself in a fight to either protect Saul from Dave and other hired guns or from negotiating with Saul to leave the land and homestead he's fairly earned.

Apache Wells is a terrific tale that highlights the importance of family, responsibility, and commitment. Steelman's prose is written in cowboy dialect that is similar to Zane Grey or Walt Coburn. While that rich cowboy-speak may be off-putting to some, I thoroughly enjoyed the authenticity. Additionally, I liked the minor hints of Biblical components and theology as well as the various humorous bits sprinkled in courtesy of a cagey old mountain man. Thanks to Cutting Edge Books for re-introducing this great western to newer generations.

Collector's Note – Ballantine published a second printing in 1965. My version is the 1972 paperback by Ballantine with a cover by Frank McCarthy. The most admired version of the book is probably the 1975 Ballantine paperback with a painted cover by Boris Vallejo (Conan, Red Sonja).

Buy a copy of this book HERE.

The Magpie Coffin

The genre “splatter western” came to fruition when Patrick C. Harrison III of Death's Head Press made it a company goal to release a series of western trade paperbacks featuring explicit violence and gore. There have been at least 13 paperbacks published by Death's Head Press as their “splatter western” offerings, but countless others have appeared from various self-published authors and small publishers. I've always enjoyed the western genre, so I borrowed a friend's copy of The Magpie Coffin (2020). It was written by Wile E. Young and represents the very first Death's Head Press splatter western title published. 

The Black Magpie is the book's anti-hero protagonist, a moniker heaped upon a notorious outlaw named Salem Covington. He's an American Civil-War Veteran that prowls the wild frontier (for reasons never really disclosed) killing and torturing bad people (?). He collects pieces of his victims – pieces of flesh, scraps of clothing – and uses them in black magic rituals to gain power. He possesses a gun that apparently (and magically) doesn't miss and it is revealed that Covington can't be killed by bullets. So, who the Hell is he then?

That's the part that Young never really dishes out to his reader, and that's the most frustrating part of the book's narrative. For reasons unclear to me, the author only provides hints of Covington's backstory and life purpose. For example, there is a brand of some sort below Covington's eye that provokes stark fear for anyone that sees it. But, what is it? Young really doesn't elaborate. There's an entire scene in the book where readers finally have the opportunity to learn more about Covington's mission when he meets “the coffin maker”. This man has some sort of history with Covington, but nothing specific is ever mentioned. It's all incredibly frustrating and senseless.

The Magpie Coffin's narrative features Covington on the revenge trail for the group of killers that murdered his mentor, a Comanche shaman named Dead Bear. Covington locates Dead Bear's corpse (far too easily) and puts him in a coffin wrapped in chains. But, Dead Bear is still somehow alive spiritually, which begs the question on why Dead Bear doesn't just perform his own revenge. Nevertheless, Covington rescues a young Union soldier and a prostitute and takes the two with him on a quest to hunt down the killers.

If you enjoy graphic violence often found in the horror and splatterpunk genre, then the sheer levels of brutality should be a pleasure for you. Like I wrote in my review for Suburban Gothic (co-wrote by a splatter western author Bryan Smith), the details of raping a corpse, scissoring off testicles, or sewing lips shut does nothing for me. It's all shock and awe, which isn't a satisfying substitute for a riveting story. There's not enough left in The Magpie Coffin contents to warrant a compelling read. This is standard volume feedback with gore. Nothing more, nothing less. Skip it.

Buy a copy of this book HERE.

Bounty Man Kildoon

Conventional wisdom is that Jory Sherman (1932-2014) was the man behind the Robert Eagle pen name for the paperback Bounty Man Kildoon. The novel was published in 1975 by Major Books and features an Old West manhunter who delivers the severed heads of his prey to collect rewards.

A skeptic might think the headhunting thing was just a cover artist’s gimmick, but the opening chapters establish that Kildoon is the real deal. By page two of the novel, the reader is treated to a description of the putrid, rotting head hanging from Kildoon’s saddle horn. He rides the trail cognizant of bushwhackers who may seek to swipe the decomposing head in exchange for the bounty.

It takes a couple chapters for a plot to develop, but once it does, it’s a familiar one. A comely young widow inherits a modest ore mine that a rival mine-owner wants to buy for a lowball price. The widow and her Oriental helper are being threatened by thugs to put pressure on her to sell. She hires Kildoon to protect her homestead from her enemy’s henchmen. And that’s the problem. 

The range war between two rival landowners was a serviceable western, but nothing you haven’t read before. It was quite different in tone and execution from the opening chapters about a decapitation freak bounty man. I wanted more of the loony hero galloping around the Wild West with a decomposing heads strapped to his saddle.

In the opening chapters, the author writes fantastic scenes of bone-crunching, stomach-turning graphic violence - likely in an attempt to one-up or surpass the Edge series, which predates Kildoon by four years. He falls more into a ho-hum, traditional western rhythm for the rest of the novel with hardly any violent gore or dismemberment.

If you’re looking for the most violent westerns in print, stick with the Edge or Apache series titles. Bounty Man Kildoon showed great promise, but failed to deliver the bloodshed as advertised.

Acknowledgment & Addendum:

Thanks to James Reasoner for his assistance in unmasking Jory Sherman as the likely author of Bounty Man Kildoon. If you’re looking for a great stand-alone western, check out his new one, Texas Bushwhack, available HERE.

There was a sequel to Bounty Man Kildoon called Bounty Man’s Target: Wanted Dead or Alive by Buck Adams, also published by Major Books. Why they didn’t use the same house name as the author of this two-book series is a mystery lost to the ages. Nevertheless, I’ve ordered the paperback. Whether I read it or not is anybody’s guess.

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The Trailsman #87 - Brothel Bullets

Jon Messmann (1920-2004) created the popular Trailsman adult western series and the superior, but less successful, Canyon O’Grady series. In Trailsman #87 from 1989, Messmann brings these two heroes together for the first time in a battle against the white-slavery skin trade.

The paperback hits the ground running with Skye Fargo (The Trailsman) rescuing a teenage girl from a thug who snatched her off the trails to make her work as whore in Cactus Corners, Arizona. Fargo is a sex-positive kinda guy, but this forcible arrangement offends his sensibilities. The girl’s sister is being held at the brothel, and there’s a rich father who will pay to have his daughters returned. It’s hero time.

Recovering the girls is simple enough, but Fargo is re-hired to capture the human traffickers behind this kidnapping operation and deliver them to the father’s ranch for some frontier justice. Along the way, he teams up with a plucky woman whose best friend was kidnapped by the same crew.

Brothel Bullets was released in March 1989, three months before the first Canyon O’Grady novel. It’s clear that Messmann was hoping to hype the character in The Trailsman before rolling out the full O’Grady experience. O’Grady doesn’t make his appearance until page 122 of this 166 page paperback. It’s a brief team-up, and O’Grady doesn’t even get laid or discuss his day job as the President’s own secret agent. In fairness, O’Grady’s appearance isn’t mentioned on the book’s cover, description or inside blurb, so the publisher wasn’t overtly hyping this prequel. I suspect I’m probably the only reader mildly excited about this glimpse into the Jon Sharpe Extended Universe.

In any case, Brothel Bullets is a damn fine installment in The Trailsman series. There’s a solid mystery regarding exactly who is behind the sex trafficking operation and plenty of action sequences along the way. Because this is an adult western, there’s many hot sex scenes, if that’s your jam. The adult westerns tend to be fungible with little to distinguish one title from another, but this one is a standout among them. Read and enjoy.

Fun Fact: Canyon O’Grady and Skye Fargo team up again in Trailsman #100: Riverboat Gold from April 1990.

Buy a copy of this book HERE.

Calico

New York Times bestselling author Lee Goldberg began his career as a journalist, reporting for national publications, including the Los Angeles Times, Newsweek, and the San Francisco Chronicle. After breaking into screenwriting, Goldberg contributed to shows like Murphy's Law, Monk, The Cosby Mysteries, and Spenser: For Hire, as well as producing and writing episodes of Monk and Diagnosis Murder. Twice nominated for an Edgar Award by the Mystery Writers of America, Goldberg's literary work includes the bestselling title Fox & O'Hare (with Janet Evanovich), as well as The Dead Man, The Jury, Ian Ludlow, and Eve Ronin series. 

Perhaps his most ambitious novel to date is Calico, coming November 7, 2023 by independent publisher Severn House. While it possesses all of the exemplary crime-fiction elements perfected by Goldberg, this stand-alone thriller journeys into a unique, untapped resource that's never been used by the 40-year veteran. The end result might surprise you.

Like Goldberg's other Los Angeles detective Eve Ronin, Calico's protagonist Beth McDade has a tumultuous history with the force. After a romantic encounter with a fellow officer, McDade is released from duty and forced to relocate to the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department. She was warned upon her arrival three years ago, “The interstate here only goes in one direction – away. Nobody wants to be in Barstow and those who do, you don't want to know.” 

Barstow, California is where McDade works as one-half of the area's homicide department, prowling a stretch of desert along the Calico mountain range to the north and the Marine Corps Logistics Base to the south, both of which play prominent roles in the book's central story. In between is a variety of military housing, alfalfa farmers, and off-the-grid survivalists residing between fast-food dives and bars. The dismal landscape and dull employment contributes to McDade's spiraling depression, a disorder she routinely treats with alcohol and endless one-night stands with the town's first responders. 

Calico's white-knuckle, straight-laced narrative, is an enthralling police-procedural that features McDade working a combination of home-invasion robbery (shades of Goldberg's own Gated Prey), a missing person case, and a bizarre highway death involving an elderly couple. From a surface level, it seems to be routine, by-the-book police business, but the sun-bleached asphalt masks a disturbing secret that mysteriously connects to the town's mining history in the late 1800s. How does a potential murder victim in 2023 connect to events in 1882? This enticing web will ensnare unsuspecting readers with plenty of surprises along the way.

As a fan of Goldberg's writing for some time now, I was pleasantly surprised with Calico's unforeseen curveball. If you enjoy murder mysteries - complete with the obligatory detective tropes, investigative twists, whodunit suspense, and strong female lead – then you already know that few can do it better than Lee Goldberg. However, by combining all of those crime-fiction staples into an unconventional, widely different approach, Goldberg delivers something altogether new, radical and exciting for his readers. Calico is a very clever crime-fiction novel authored by an absolute pro. Highly recommended. 

Buy a copy of this book HERE.