Burke Dane had to cut down his lynched younger half-brother Charley Mayo. Not he's on the hunt for the sidewinder that did it. The only thing Burke has to go on is the braided rawhide rope that Charley was hanged with.
Looking for more evidence, he comes across a fellow in danger and saves his life. His name is Jesse Lester, and he and Burke become tenuous friends. At least until Burke finds out that Jesse was in his predicament because he was looking for something: "a damned good rawhide reata" borrowed by an amigo who lost it.
Author Gordon D. Shirreffs is a little-remembered name now, but he was once a Western powerhouse, producing over 70 novels during his 40-year career, including the classic Quint Kershaw trilogy of mountain-man novels, The Untamed Breed, Bold Legend, and Glorieta Pass. Modern Western writers like Robert J. Randisi, James Reasoner, Jory Sherman, Mike Linaker, and Peter Brandvold list him as a major influence in their interviews on Western Fiction Review.
Those who like a mystery in their Westerns will enjoy Rio Desperado as Burke goes "undercover" to find the one(s) responsible for Charley's death — and find the $5,000 he was last seen with, to deliver it to Charley's wife and children. The book shows how there are some things that can't be done alone, and deals that must be made and followed through on.
The edition of Rio Desperado I read was packaged as a novel, but at 120 pages of relatively large print, it is little more than a novella. I was not surprised to learn that it was originally published as one half of an Ace Double, along with Voice of the Gun, also by Shirreffs.
But genre-fiction readers know that the novella is often the peak of storytelling. I often prefer novels, but the novella lets the story set its own length and pace, without concession to sales potential. Of course, once complete, its only usual option is to be collection in a book with others of its kind, unless, like Shirreffs' was even in 1988, your name is draw enough to sell one on its own.
Rio Desperado is fast-paced but does not stint on character. Dane is nicely complex, and Shirreffs keeps the mysterious nature in most of the supporting cast until it is their time. Shirreffs also doesn't shy away from the honesty of life in the Old West, like how Lester's sister "likes nice things" but hasn't "got a dime," so she uses what she does have. ("'I've got some stock-in-trade.' She looked down at her lovely body. 'Something Clete Hinch is mighty interested in.... I'm free, white and over twenty-one. You do your type of mankilling and I'll do mine, Jesse.')"
Showing posts with label revenge. Show all posts
Showing posts with label revenge. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Friday, June 26, 2009
Road to Purgatory by Max Allan Collins (sequel to Road to Perdition)
For more of Friday's Forgotten Books, visit Pattinase.
It seems odd to write of a book as "forgotten" when it's only a few years old, but since Road to Purgatory is already out of print, I guess it applies. But perhaps it's not as much forgotten as it is simply little-known. One hopes that the film version currently in production (directed by the book's author, Max Allan Collins) will bring the story to more people, however, because it just may be the best thing he's ever written.
Michael Satariano, formerly Michael O'Sullivan Jr. — son of John Looney's "Angel of Death" — has become the one-eyed war hero who won the Congressional Medal of Honor for his service in Bataan. He is looking to avenge his father's murder by the famous Chicago gangster Al Capone, now released from prison but sequestering himself from all but his most intimate fellows (including acting Outfit boss, Frank Nitti) due to the advanced debilitating effects of syphilis.
To succeed in doing that, Michael will have to infiltrate the highest echelons of the Outfit, using his apparent Sicilian heritage to his benefit (Papa Satariano, his adoptive father, ran a restaurant that was a favorite hangout of Outfit personnel) — and with the full knowledge of FBI agent Eliot Ness, who has kept Michael's true identity a secret (and even assisted with his eventual adoption).
Part sequel (primarily to Collins's Road to Perdition novelization — the events begin ten years later) and part prequel (four chapters focus on Michael O'Sullivan Sr.'s, role in a political riot in 1922, his antagonistic relationship with Connor Looney, and the birth of Mike's brother, Peter), Road to Purgatory is, above all, a novel of betrayal.
Mike can't seem to keep his promises to anyone but himself — not even the too-good-to-be-true hometown girl he left behind when he went to war — and a good deal of the novel's suspense comes from wondering when Frank Nitti, who all but adopts Mike as a surrogate son, will find out the truth. Mike digs himself deeper with each new relationship, and things really start to fall apart when someone from his pre-war past resurfaces in the present.
The Chicago gangland of the 1920s, '30s, and '40s is author Max Allan Collins' specialty. Eliot Ness, in particular, has appeared in many of his novels, including the author's well-known series starring historical private-eye Nathan Heller. Ness is also featured in his own quartet of novels (Bullet Proof, et al.) and the film Eliot Ness: An Untouchable Life, which Collins wrote and directed. So, it's hardly a surprise that Ness plays a sizable role in Road to Purgatory — though, with Prohibition over, he's pretty much stuck fighting that other social pariah, venereal disease, giving him yet another connection to Capone.
Collins' characteristic exhaustive research (he even lets us in on the Outfit's "made man" ceremony) adds considerable depth and atmosphere to this not-so-simple revenge tale, the middle story in a saga named after the three parts of Dante's Divine Comedy. He takes the bold step of making Capone and Nitti sympathetic characters and also manages to add Nitti's death into the narrative in a way that does not contradict his earlier dramatization of it in his Nathan Heller novel, The Million-Dollar Wound — something that was reportedly in his mind while he was writing it. In many ways, Road to Purgatory is a culmination of certain parts of Collins's career, and I look forward to what he does with the film adaptation.
It seems odd to write of a book as "forgotten" when it's only a few years old, but since Road to Purgatory is already out of print, I guess it applies. But perhaps it's not as much forgotten as it is simply little-known. One hopes that the film version currently in production (directed by the book's author, Max Allan Collins) will bring the story to more people, however, because it just may be the best thing he's ever written.
Michael Satariano, formerly Michael O'Sullivan Jr. — son of John Looney's "Angel of Death" — has become the one-eyed war hero who won the Congressional Medal of Honor for his service in Bataan. He is looking to avenge his father's murder by the famous Chicago gangster Al Capone, now released from prison but sequestering himself from all but his most intimate fellows (including acting Outfit boss, Frank Nitti) due to the advanced debilitating effects of syphilis.
To succeed in doing that, Michael will have to infiltrate the highest echelons of the Outfit, using his apparent Sicilian heritage to his benefit (Papa Satariano, his adoptive father, ran a restaurant that was a favorite hangout of Outfit personnel) — and with the full knowledge of FBI agent Eliot Ness, who has kept Michael's true identity a secret (and even assisted with his eventual adoption).Part sequel (primarily to Collins's Road to Perdition novelization — the events begin ten years later) and part prequel (four chapters focus on Michael O'Sullivan Sr.'s, role in a political riot in 1922, his antagonistic relationship with Connor Looney, and the birth of Mike's brother, Peter), Road to Purgatory is, above all, a novel of betrayal.
Mike can't seem to keep his promises to anyone but himself — not even the too-good-to-be-true hometown girl he left behind when he went to war — and a good deal of the novel's suspense comes from wondering when Frank Nitti, who all but adopts Mike as a surrogate son, will find out the truth. Mike digs himself deeper with each new relationship, and things really start to fall apart when someone from his pre-war past resurfaces in the present.
The Chicago gangland of the 1920s, '30s, and '40s is author Max Allan Collins' specialty. Eliot Ness, in particular, has appeared in many of his novels, including the author's well-known series starring historical private-eye Nathan Heller. Ness is also featured in his own quartet of novels (Bullet Proof, et al.) and the film Eliot Ness: An Untouchable Life, which Collins wrote and directed. So, it's hardly a surprise that Ness plays a sizable role in Road to Purgatory — though, with Prohibition over, he's pretty much stuck fighting that other social pariah, venereal disease, giving him yet another connection to Capone.
Collins' characteristic exhaustive research (he even lets us in on the Outfit's "made man" ceremony) adds considerable depth and atmosphere to this not-so-simple revenge tale, the middle story in a saga named after the three parts of Dante's Divine Comedy. He takes the bold step of making Capone and Nitti sympathetic characters and also manages to add Nitti's death into the narrative in a way that does not contradict his earlier dramatization of it in his Nathan Heller novel, The Million-Dollar Wound — something that was reportedly in his mind while he was writing it. In many ways, Road to Purgatory is a culmination of certain parts of Collins's career, and I look forward to what he does with the film adaptation.
Friday, March 6, 2009
Friday's Forgotten Book: A Man Called Brazos by T.V. Olsen
For more of Friday's Forgotten Books, visit Pattinase.
"Brazos — that is a strange name. Isn't that a river?"
"Yes, ma'am, in Texas. My father settled by it, and I was named after it."
In Twentieth Century Western Writers, author Joe R. Lansdale says of T. V. Olsen, "He should be better known outside the immediate Western field, and ... I can not help but feel that with the right press, Olsen could command the position currently enjoyed by the late Louis L'Amour as America's most popular and foremost author of traditional Western novels."
The author of 40 novels under his own name and pseudonyms such as Joshua Stark and Christopher Storm, Theodore Victor "T.V." Olsen won a Spur Award for The Golden Chance, and two of his novels were made into films: The Stalking Moon with Gregory Peck and Soldier Blue with Candice Bergen. Olsen has lately become known for his often-sympathetic treatment of the American Indian in his fiction (see Bob Herzberg's recent Savages and Saints), though he considered his Jefferson Davis novel There Was a Season to be his most important work.
This week's "forgotten book," A Man Called Brazos, was originally published by Fawcett under their famous Gold Medal banner. It showcases Olsen's skill at the traditional Western tale. Based on my experience with it (and Lansdale's high praise), I'll definitely be looking for more of Olsen's work in the future.
Brazos Kane's parents were killed when he was ten by a raid of Choctaw Indians, and he was sent to live with his uncle, whom he left one night after a few too many beatings. Afterward, Brazos lived like an urchin in a trail town for a year until he picked the wrong drunk to roll — Pop Melaven. Pop offered Brazos a choice: work for him, or get his ass beaten right there. ("He'd rubbed his brass-studded belt, and Brazos was two seconds making up his mind.")
Brazos pulled his own weight and then some (as Pop liked his whiskey) in their partnership and was never treated as less than an equal for ten years. Then, after selling their largest herd of horses yet, Pop took the $12,000 into town and was promptly robbed and murdered. ("It was easy to anticipate a brutal and bitter end for the man, and yet when it came it had dropped the bottom out of Brazos' life.")
From that point on, Brazos's only goal in life was to find the man who'd killed his friend and mentor. Following up on a vague description of the culprit, Brazos zooms in on John Lambeth as his prime suspect. He hires himself out with Lambeth's crew on the Nugget ranch during the middle of a range war with the neighboring Montalvos.
The revenge story alone would be enough for some authors, but Olsen fills out the majority of A Man Called Brazos with the bad blood between the two ranches. Olsen also adds the spice of a femme fatale of sorts in the character of Lila Mae Lambeth, John's wife — a Southern belle with vast ambitions and just enough Lady Macbeth in her to make them happen.
All she needs is a cowpoke dimwitted enough to follow along while thinking he's in charge. The cast of characters is a little hard to keep straight at times, but the tension of the war, the suspense of Brazos's quest, and Lila Mae's machinations (while insightfully illustrating the difficulty of getting a man to see the truth about his wife) combine to make A Man Called Brazos a gripping read with a fine, fast-paced finale that more than satisfies the justice requirement.
"Brazos — that is a strange name. Isn't that a river?"
"Yes, ma'am, in Texas. My father settled by it, and I was named after it."
In Twentieth Century Western Writers, author Joe R. Lansdale says of T. V. Olsen, "He should be better known outside the immediate Western field, and ... I can not help but feel that with the right press, Olsen could command the position currently enjoyed by the late Louis L'Amour as America's most popular and foremost author of traditional Western novels."
The author of 40 novels under his own name and pseudonyms such as Joshua Stark and Christopher Storm, Theodore Victor "T.V." Olsen won a Spur Award for The Golden Chance, and two of his novels were made into films: The Stalking Moon with Gregory Peck and Soldier Blue with Candice Bergen. Olsen has lately become known for his often-sympathetic treatment of the American Indian in his fiction (see Bob Herzberg's recent Savages and Saints), though he considered his Jefferson Davis novel There Was a Season to be his most important work.
This week's "forgotten book," A Man Called Brazos, was originally published by Fawcett under their famous Gold Medal banner. It showcases Olsen's skill at the traditional Western tale. Based on my experience with it (and Lansdale's high praise), I'll definitely be looking for more of Olsen's work in the future.
Brazos Kane's parents were killed when he was ten by a raid of Choctaw Indians, and he was sent to live with his uncle, whom he left one night after a few too many beatings. Afterward, Brazos lived like an urchin in a trail town for a year until he picked the wrong drunk to roll — Pop Melaven. Pop offered Brazos a choice: work for him, or get his ass beaten right there. ("He'd rubbed his brass-studded belt, and Brazos was two seconds making up his mind.")
Brazos pulled his own weight and then some (as Pop liked his whiskey) in their partnership and was never treated as less than an equal for ten years. Then, after selling their largest herd of horses yet, Pop took the $12,000 into town and was promptly robbed and murdered. ("It was easy to anticipate a brutal and bitter end for the man, and yet when it came it had dropped the bottom out of Brazos' life.")
From that point on, Brazos's only goal in life was to find the man who'd killed his friend and mentor. Following up on a vague description of the culprit, Brazos zooms in on John Lambeth as his prime suspect. He hires himself out with Lambeth's crew on the Nugget ranch during the middle of a range war with the neighboring Montalvos.
The revenge story alone would be enough for some authors, but Olsen fills out the majority of A Man Called Brazos with the bad blood between the two ranches. Olsen also adds the spice of a femme fatale of sorts in the character of Lila Mae Lambeth, John's wife — a Southern belle with vast ambitions and just enough Lady Macbeth in her to make them happen.
All she needs is a cowpoke dimwitted enough to follow along while thinking he's in charge. The cast of characters is a little hard to keep straight at times, but the tension of the war, the suspense of Brazos's quest, and Lila Mae's machinations (while insightfully illustrating the difficulty of getting a man to see the truth about his wife) combine to make A Man Called Brazos a gripping read with a fine, fast-paced finale that more than satisfies the justice requirement.
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