The Law and the Lawless: A Ralph Compton Novel by David Robbins (Western)

Cestus Calloway leads a gang of bank and stagecoach robbers. To keep in the public's good graces, he throws some of the ill-gotten gains into the crowd during the getaway, giving him the moniker "the Robin Hood of the Rockies." And his main rule is no killings: "There's nothin' that stirs folks up more than a killin'. They send out bigger posses and hardly ever give up.... We want them on our side, not scourin' the countryside to string us up."

Boyd Cooper is the town marshal of Alpine, an otherwise quiet settlement. But the law is the law, and Cooper gathers a posse including his deputy and a local scout to chase the Calloway gang. Trouble comes when one of the gang stays behind to use the posse's horses for a little target practice and hits a man instead.

Retribution is quick — gang: 1, posse: 1 — and the hunt is on. From here on, hotter heads will rule and the stakes rise until neither side is willing to put aside honor or revenge for a peaceful outcome.

Author David Robbins (riding once again for the Ralph Compton brand) combines traditional Western writing with individuated characters in The Law and the Lawless.

Robbins strikes the ideal balance between exciting action scenes and quieter character moments — including a touching middle-age romance that hits all the right spots — with enough of the former to keep the pages turning and enough of the latter to ensure we care about who lives or dies. This makes The Law and the Lawless the best Western I've read in a while and the best from the Ralph Compton camp since The Man from Nowhere.

Black Powder Justice (Wilderness #6) by David Robbins writing as David Thompson

Since the Wilderness series was released in audio form, I've been trying to catch with entries I missed, particularly the earlier ones. Read by Rusty Nelson and published by Books in Motion, these books are truly fine Westerns well-read by a professional. The most recent one I heard is Black Powder Justice, the sixth book, originally published in the early 1990s.

Nate King is hunting buffalo for himself and his five-months-pregnant Shoshone wife, Winona, when it begins to snow. In the mountains of 1835, this is not a small matter. Getting a large chunk of meat for now, he heads home. But the blood draws a pack of wolves, who work steadily to attack Nate and wear him down in their typical style. Eventually he fall prey to the cold and loss of blood.

In the midst of his recovery, Nate and Winona venture outdoors to investigate a noise and return to a home invader -- a human one. Before long, the Kings are prisoners in their own home, and soon Nate is knocked out.  When he wakes up, he finds everyone else -- and all the food -- is gone.

Uses his copious survival skills, his respect for others, and the fame gained by killing a grizzly bear using only a knife to not only retrieve his wife, but also gain the respect of a Ute brave while forcefully borrowing his horse.

David Robbins wrote the Wilderness series under the pseudonym David Thompson until recently.  As of series entry #67 (The Gift), he has begun using his own name.  Under either name, the author is a natural storyteller with a true gift for authentic characterization -- he shows us in Black Powder Justice that even a stoic Indian woman can get insecure when her husband calls another woman's name in his sleep -- and for lengthy descriptive passage that don't feel like filler.

Wilderness by David Robbins writing as David Thompson (mountain man series of Western novels)

The first of David Robbins's Wilderness novels (published under the pseudonym David Thompson) that I read was number one: King of the Mountain, which tells of Nate King's journey west (accompanied by his uncle Zeke) away from his old life to begin a new one in the mountains in 1828. The next one I read was a lot more recent. And I've got to tell you: skipping around in a series is asking for confusion.

Fifty-nine books later, a lot has happened. At first, I was confused and thought that the character of Zach that plays the main role in The Outcast (#60 in the series) was the uncle from King of the Mountain — Zach, Zeke: you see the problem — but it turns out he is Nate's grown son by his wife Winona. (In fact, Nate is not even in this book, except by mention.)

Since Winona is full-blooded Shoshone, Zach's half-breed status lends him a notoriously hot temper. So, when his own (pregnant) wife, Louisa, is kidnapped by a Blood Indian cast out from his tribe for an "unthinkable" act, somebody's going to die! Meanwhile, a small band of Tun-kua (Heart Eaters) are on the hunt for vengeance, and Shakespeare McNair nurses his Flathead wife, Blue Water Woman, back to health after she is injured trying to rescue Louisa.

Author David Robbins's Westerns have a devoted following of both male and female readers, which is surprising for a genre believed to have a primarily male fan base (older-male judging by the sheer number of large-print titles available). Some suggest Robbins's more balanced readership is because of the genuine emotion his characters show for one another, and this may be true, but a good story also simply transcends gender.

The Outcast has characters that are devoted to one another, and this speaks to the traditional (some would say "old-fashioned") expectations of couples: the man wants to protect, and the woman wants the security of protection. At the same time, the action rarely lets up, with another conflict arising as soon as the last one has been surmounted.

The saga of the King family (plus McNair) is now almost 20 years old, and Robbins / Thompson shows no signs of slowing down. (In addition to his Wilderness books, he is also the primary writer for the Trailsman series of action Westerns published under the house name Jon Sharpe, as well as others under his own name.)

I was already looking forward to reading my next Wilderness, wherever in the series it took place, when I learned that #62, The Tears of God, was inspired by one of Robbins's favorite writers, Robert E. Howard. As Howard is also one of my favorites, I instantly knew that one had to be next. Interestingly, the cover of Tears of God was previously used on a Trailsman novel, Colorado Carnage, which was also written by Robbins.)

On a search for his daughter Evelyn, Nate King and his friend Shakespeare McNair (so nicknamed for his predilection of quoting the Bard at opportune moments, and otherwise) find she's been escorted by Jeremiah Blunt, who is taking supplies to a group of Shakers in the Valley of Skulls — a "no man's land" so desolate, dangerous, and "evil" that even the Indians avoid it.

Nate sends Evelyn home with Shakespeare and offers to guide Blunt to the Valley since he knows the area and its dangers. But it's Nate's presence that endangers them first because they run into Kuruk, a Pawnee whose uncle Nate killed in self-defense, and Kuruk and some of his friends want revenge. The Shakers don't know what they're in for, though they believe everything is "God's will" even as one of their number is eaten by a grizzly. And Nate tries to encourage them to stay safe, even as he continues to defend himself from Kuruk's attacks.

I definitely see the Robert E. Howard influence in the Valley of Skulls, and though everything can be given a natural explanation, there is a definite air of the supernatural throughout The Tears of God, which would also put it firmly in "weird Western" territory. (Paul Green, author of the Encyclopedia of Weird Westerns, would no doubt file it under the "weird menace Western.")

The Tears of God takes up the story after #61, The Scalp Hunters, but my enjoyment of it did not diminish from not having read that book. One of the main draws of the series is how Robbins/Thompson captures both the adventure and danger of life in the wilderness. He does not shy away from the realities. When the hungry grizzly attacks a Shaker woman, we see the aftermath fully. It's a shocking, even horrific, scene and one that does not judge the bear or the woman. That kind of even-handed writing is rare, and is one reason I'll continue to seek out these books.

The Trailsman by authors writing as Jon Sharpe (Western series novels ghostwritten by Jon Messmann, David Robbins, James Reasoner, Robert J. Randisi, Ellen Recknor, Robert Vardeman and others)

Series titles reviewed:
Trailsman #271: St. Louis Sinners by Ellen Recknor
Trailsman #209: Timber Terror by [unknown to me]
Trailsman #3: Mountain Man Kill by Jon Messmann
Trailsman #309: California Carnage by James Reasoner
Trailsman #317: Mountain Mystery by David Robbins
Trailsman #210: The Bush League by Robert J. Randisi
Trailsman #234: Apache Duel by Robert Vardeman
Giant Trailsman #5: Idaho Blood Spoor by David Robbins

The Trailsman is one of the longest-running series of Western novels, having begun in 1980. Created by author Jon Messmann and published under the pseudonym Jon Sharpe, Messmann wrote most of the first books before his death in 2004. With a stable of experienced Western writers fulfilling the duties these days (though the name on the cover is still "Jon Sharpe"), the series is well past its 300th entry at this writing and is still going strong.

The series follows loner Skye Fargo, who, since he was eighteen, and after tracking down the people who killed his parents, has built a reputation as a trailer and tracker, hiring himself out as a combination protector/detective along the way to help people get out of difficult situations.

Since The Trailsman is an "adult" Western series, these jobs usually involve a comely female who is invariably willing to pay Fargo fringe benefits before he rides off again. Generally, there are between two and six sex scenes in among the fighting and shooting (these are traditional Westerns in every other sense), leading some of the more self-important Western readers to call them "Western porn."

But I think this just adds to the rough and tumble nature of the series and its protagonist, and there's nothing wrong with any Western that couldn't be helped by a few rolls in the hay. Readers respond positively to this, a fact supported by the series' success and longevity. (Some have even said that the success of series Westerns like The Trailsman keeps the door open for the publication of newer original Westerns.)

In any case, I enjoy them a great deal, though I wasn't sure I was going to when I read my first, #271 in the series, St. Louis Sinners, published in 2004. Though it had an interesting enough story (with enough of Oliver Twist included to make the connection unavoidable), I didn't get into the character or his predicament, and it just wasn't exactly what I was looking for.

Timber Terror by Ellen Recknor

I have since learned from more experienced readers of the series (like Western Fiction Review) that St. Louis Sinners is one of the lesser entries in the series, and author Ellen Recknor actually gets a few obvious things wrong about the character. Luckily, I was intrigued enough by Recknor's planting of Dickens into the Old West to try another, #209, Timber Terror from 1999.

Timber Terror wasn't a great improvement, but was a much quicker read. In it, Fargo gets involved with rival logging companies, and the book includes some suspenseful scenes involving Fargo in a log flume with giant tree trunks racing down toward him and the sides almost too slippery for purchase. (When a writer can make you fear for the safety of a series character who appears in more than 300 books, that's skill.)

Mountain Man Kill by Jon Messmann

Chance brought me into contact with a very early entry in the series, the third in fact, Mountain Man Kill from 1980. In it, Fargo is hired to find out who is stealing from the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, so he sets himself up as a trapper in the mountains and settles in to wait.

I thought I was in for an interesting look at a sort of trapper detective — not to mention expecting this to be a more fully thought-out representation of the character, since the author could not have possibly been out of ideas by this time — but Messmann is much too focused on chronicling Fargo's time playing house (or tepee, as the case may be) with Suni, an Indian maiden given to him for saving a brave's life, to ever make the mystery, such as it is, more than of passable interest.

Now don't get me wrong: the sex is part of what I come to these books for, too, but by the sixth or seventh time reading about Suni's "copper-cream breasts," the idea begins to take hold that perhaps the author is just filling up pages to meet contract stipulations. (The publisher reportedly changed the direction of this part of the series in later years.) This one was the greatest disappointment, but only due to my higher expectations: Mountain Man Kill is otherwise surprisingly indistinguishable in style and content from the books written 20 years later.

California Carnage by James Reasoner 

Luckily, the next one I tried, immediately after and bought in the same batch from my local used book store, was a great improvement — one might even say its diametric opposite. In any case, California Carnage (#309, from 2007) was the book that has cemented my faith in the series, or at least in the current crop of entries.

Not surprisingly, it was written by prolific genre-spanning author James Reasoner, and it is undoubtedly the best Trailsman I've read yet. In fact, California Carnage is so good as to seem as if it could be enjoyed even by people who normally scoff at these books; it feels just like a traditional Western that has been crafted to fit around the character.

In California Carnage, Fargo heads to the Golden State to meet up with Hiram Stoddard, one of two men who want to build the first stagecoach line along the Old Mission Trail. But when Stoddard's men make an attempt on the life of Belinda, the daughter of Stoddard's rival Arthur Grayson, Fargo decides to ride with Grayson's team instead (I'm sure it doesn't hurt that she's the only mature female character in the book). Soon it's a race, with Fargo acting as bodyguard as Grayson's stagecoach makes its way up the Trail, with Stoddard, who is willing to do anything to win, close behind.

Along the way, the crew meet up with a salty coach driver, a ghost who's searching for lost treasure, a girl who needs saving, and a boy who's rather taken with her. Reasoner makes the interesting choice of focusing on the emotional aspect in the few of Fargo's sex scenes, using the kind of "two into one" language more suited to the historical romances on Reasoner's bibliography.

My only problem with this is that it sets Fargo up to actually fall in love, but then the anthologic nature of the series forces him to be eager to get back on his own at the end. Still, that's a minor quibble in what was a really terrific read. I mean, stagecoaches, a ghost, and young love — California Carnage has something for everyone.

Mountain Mystery by David Robbins

In #317, 2008's Mountain Mystery, Fargo is found by Mabel Landry, who wants the famous Trailsman to locale her missing brother, Chester. He agrees, until Mabel says she must go along. The stubborn Mabel won't take no for an answer but proves to be little more than trouble for Skye, who has to rescue her from the Untilla Indians at least twice.

Fargo also has a run-in with Malachi Skagg — with whom he has a history that is described (though I don't know if this history actually took place in an earlier book in the series, or in the "inbetweens") — and from whose settlement Chester last wrote to Mabel. Eventually, Fargo is involved in a multilayered search and rescue, and author David Robbins (Rio Largo) keeps the pages flying by. He skimps on the sex scenes, though, and in fact the action stops entirely once he attempts to insert an instruction manual on sensitivity in the midst of one:

When Fargo had slept with his first dove, he learned an important lesson. She told him that most men [ignored] the woman's needs.... She explained to him that foreplay meant a lot ... that touching and kissing helped bring a woman to the brink so that her release was as powerful as the man's.... If touching and kissing helped things along, then by God he would touch and kiss until he straddled a volcano. [p.76]

Mountain Mystery starts out great, but in the end it only hints at the interesting aspects of a couple of characters that seem intriguing at first but then devolve into the usual ciphers necessary to push the hero's plot along. Robbins, however, is known for his innovation in the genre, and so manages to incorporate a substance that is common today, but that is rarely mentioned in Western novels.

He also utilizes the kind of action currently popular in extreme crime novels — a kind of Biblical torture like that which made Allan Guthrie's novel Hard Man so controversial upon its release.

This combination of traditional Western action with modern tropes is what makes Robbins one of the more interesting Western authors working today. Unfortunately, with series novels being what they are, his attempt at getting the reader emotionally involved with the characters' relationships falls flat (and in fact feels like an insult) when Robbins is required to end Mountain Mystery in the expected way.

The Bush League by Robert J. Randisi

Author Robert J. Randisi is one of my favorite Western writers, and his The Gunsmith is certainly my favorite series, so when I learned he had written 1999's The Bush League (#210), I had to try it out. In it, the owner of a team playing the new sport of baseball hires Fargo to lead them across the Wild West to San Francisco, playing a few exhibition games along the way.

Imagine my disappointment when not only was The Bush League only 150 pages, stopping abruptly before any closure was allowed — I was misled by the 16-page preview of Badlands Bloodbath in the back into thinking that it was at least a little longer — but it also was short on sexiness (the scenes there were, were few and dull). The author also makes Fargo look dumb by having him not know anything about baseball, and yet (contractually, I have to assume) gives him the physical prowess to hit five home runs in a row.

Apache Duel by Robert Vardeman

My next was a disappointment as well, #234: Apache Duel from 2001, in which Skye Fargo finds himself up against two formidable foes: the Apache Sharp Knife and gunrunner Big Red Frederickson. The author of this one is Robert Vardeman, who writes his own Westerns as Karl Lassiter and has written scores of novels in the Slocum series by "Jake Logan."

Vardeman's prose is serviceable and workmanlike, showing little flair or personality. This makes the action fast, and the beginning of Apache Duel was especially exciting, but everything else is dull in comparison to the work of other authors. I encountered these same traits in one of his Slocum titles, Slocum and the Pomo Chief, and I may simply need to avoid his work in the future.

For vacation reading, I decided to seek out the work of an author I'd been impressed with in the past, and so chose the fifth of the Giant Trailsman novels (these are 100 or so pages longer than the norm). David Robbins's Idaho Blood Spoor has a lot going for it: fast action, smooth-flowing prose, and because of the added length, deeper characterization.

Idaho Blood Spoor by David Robbins

In Idaho Blood Spoor, a rich man's son disappears (along with the son's wife and friend), and the tycoon hires the best trackers he can find to locate the boy. (He seems to not care whether the other two are found.) This group includes, of course, the famous Trailsman, a brother-sister duo, and two old friends of Fargo's. This Magnificent Five head out (separately) in search of the young man and a hefty reward.

Robbins does an excellent job of making the quintet of trackers into distinctive individuals. Their competition and mutual respect, along with their heated pursuit of $20,000 for the one to find the man's son, make Idaho Blood Spoor a suspenseful read full of human greed and machinations. Robbins is one of the Western genres most prolific and accomplished authors, and his Trailsman novels are always some of the best ones available.

In conclusion, the quality of the books in The Trailsman series (and sometimes within a single book) is very uneven, but gems are hidden throughout, and these fast-paced, sexy reads are always worth the small cover price. For a while, however, I may limit my own purchases to those written by James Reasoner — or perhaps David Robbins, who is an experienced Western series writer in his own right (penning the Wilderness series as "David Thompson") and writes the vast majority of the Trailsman titles published in the series these days.

The Trailsman series, along with the other Action Westerns once published monthly by Penguin, has ended, but they are still available used and in e-book formats.

Rio Largo: a Ralph Compton novel by David Robbins (audio book read by Joel Leffert)

Kent Tovey and Dar Pierce run the "Circle T" and "D.P." ranches, respectively, on opposite sides of the Río Largo ("long river"). Technically, they're competitors, but since there is enough land for each to run his ranch successfully, they often help each other out and have become friends. Workers for each ranch are told to be polite to the other ranch's workers, and to only go for cattle that have crossed over once the other ranchers have been notified, to avoid any suspicion of rustling.

But an impulsive act leads to a murder, which leads to more, with each side accusing the other without searching for evidence. When one of the ranch owners is found with his face half–shot off, it's war.

Author David Robbins's tough and forceful prose was the first thing I liked about Rio Largo. Later, I was impressed by how the author laces his old-style storytelling with modern sensibilities.

Any ranch worth its salt is going to have a high percentage of cowboys and vaqueros who are experienced gunhands. But Tovey and Pierce seem to have hired more than their fair share of hardened killers. The newest hire, Hijino, is a breed to himself, however — the closest thing to a serial killer I've encountered in a tale of the Old West.

Robbins is also an expert at creating suspense, as his characters find out information and — as they try to piece together who is behind the sabotage — quickly realize that no one is safe. (Robbins also doesn't shy away from chronicling the effects of the bloodshed on loved ones.)

Entirely despicable, Hijino is also the most purely entertaining character in Rio Largo, simply due to his unpredictability. While the other denizens of the Circle T and D.P. are mostly loyal to their employers, there is underlying racism among a selection of the cowhands. Also, some of the Pierce children (half-Mexican by Dar's wife Juanita) just know that the "gringos" are behind it. But Hijino schemes entirely for his own purposes, and you just never know what he'll do next. One thing is for sure: he'll let no one get in his way.

Reader Joel Leffert's performance deserves a great deal of the credit for how much I enjoyed this book. From the youngest woman to the oldest man, his voices are individual and authentic. But this only enhanced the experience wrought by Robbins himself. Despite being published under the "Ralph Compton" mantle, this is no throwaway series novel but a possible contender for the mantle of modern classic. "Fill your hand" with a copy of Rio Largo.