SAVAGE MESA - A New Adventure of Tom Mix by Scott McCrea

Savage Mesa, the second novel (of five, so far) in Scott McCrea’s Tom Mix series, is a big departure from the first. While that one, Mountain Killer (reviewed HERE), was a western murder mystery, Savage Mesa is pure adventure, with a larger cast, a wider setting and a more complex plot.          

In this book, we meet a varied cast of characters even before our hero even makes the scene: Among them: a gang of outlaws intent on stealing the printing plates for a new five-dollar bill; a band of renegade Comanches who see rampaging terror as a means of restoring the tribe’s lost glory; a widow and her young son at the mercy of love-starved bachelors; an aging Civil War hero and his wife; a circus magician and his comely daughter; a hard-bitten Army captain; the sheriff and deputy of Wichita; the designer of the five-dollar plates, and an intrepid agent of the U.S. Treasury.

Until the story comes to a boil Tom Mix is just one of an ensemble cast. But roughly halfway through, he takes center stage, with the rest of the cast revolving around him. At this point in his career, Mix is still doing a little part-time marshaling out of Dewey, Oklahoma (true fact), but his main job seems to be performing in the Miller 101 Circus. He apparently has yet to break into the movies.

After a brief visit to the circus, the story takes off on a harrowing journey through the skies and across the plains to Utah, taking Tom and his crew to Robber’s Roost, the fabled hideout once used by the Wild Bunch. Each person in the band meets his or her fate in one fashion or another, some finding redemption, some peace, and some something far less pleasant. It’s a complex adventure, well told, that goes far beyond merely “a tale of Tom Mix.”

There’s some fine storytelling here, and I look forward to seeing what the author has in store for us in the rest of the series. 

There are three more books in the series (so far) and I look forward to see where Mr. McCrea takes them. 

"TALES OF TOM MIX" - A New Series by Scott McCrae: MOUNTAIN KILLER

Mountain Killer is the first of five novels (so far) starring Tom Mix. It’s a good read. Scott McCrea’s prose is tight and smooth, and delivers a fair number of smiles. The plan for the series, the author has announced, is to ride with Tom on adventures set in different stages of his life.

In this one, Tom is thirty-one years old and serving as Marshal of Dewey, Oklahoma. (According the Wikipedia, the extent of my research, Mix did actually work as a night marshal for short time there.) He has also been featured as a sharp-shooter and trick rider in the Miller Brothers 101 Ranch Show, said to be the next best thing to Buffalo Bill’s Wild West.

Mix is described as the handsomest ugly man the sheriff of the small logging town of La Mort Sanglante (French for “Bloody Death”) has ever met, with “damnably clear, dark eyes under thick brows, a nose that too flat and mouth that was too wide. But his smile was wide-open and infectious, and the comma of black hair that fell over his left brow somehow illustrated his rough-and-tumble aspect.”

Mountain Killer is a no-nonsense murder mystery, with a bit of lead-slinging and fisticuffs added for spice. The sheriff and other locals take it for granted the killing was done by a grizzly bear—most likely a near-legendary giant beast known as Big Claw—but Tom has his doubts.

 There’s a good-lookin’ female on hand, of course, and she and Tom quite naturally cotton to one another. But the focus is always on solving the mystery, and Tom is on it like a dog with a bone. 

Author McCrae dishes up a number of great lines:

-        The men in the bar leaned more closely, drinking in every word like it was served from a shot glass.

-        Tom Mix wondered why anyone would bother telling Jonah Brunus to hush; he’d heard dead cats make more noise.

-        His fist impacted on Cavanaugh’s jaw with the sound of a bat hitting a baseball.

-        He held her tight and kissed her back. When he let her go, he was afraid that his mouth was smoking.

-        The shotgun answered with a bouquet of buckshot, and Tom ducked.       

Through it all, there are some nicely-wrought characters and sharply-done action scenes. Does Tom finally give the killer a healthy dose of justice? Does a grizzly do his business in the woods?

Forgotten Stories: "Tied Up For Tombstone" by W.C. Tuttle (1925)

Tuttle did a series of these tales about the wacky citizens of Piperock for Adventure. This one is from the issue dated Sept. 18, 1918. 

Forgotten Books: The Sheriff Henry Series by W.C TUTTLE

And more to come, I think. Collect 'em all!

Forgotten Stories: SOLOMON KANE by W.C. Tuttle?? (1923)

Solomon Kane, as I'm sure you know, was one of Robert E. Howard's first major series characters. Kane, a grim-faced puritan who battled sorcery with his sword, made his first appearance in the story "Red Shadows" in the August 1928 issue of Weird Tales. But here's proof that W.C. Tuttle, the creator of Hashknife Hartley and Sheriff Henry Conroy, employed the name five years earlier here in the August 10, 1923 issue of Adventure. 

The two characters are as different as can be, of course, but the name figures prominently here, and it's well known that Adventure was Howard's favorite magazine. Did 17-year-old Robert E. read this one? What do you think?

Forgotten Stories: BY ORDER OF BUCK BRADY by W.C. Tuttle (1928)

From the author of the Hashknife Hartley novels and the Sheriff Henry stories. This one appeared in the July 1, 1928 of Adventure, as found on Pulpmags.org!

Forgotten Stories: "Silver Saddle" by Frank Gruber (1937)

Here's a piece of illustrated fiction by pulp writer (and later Western and mystery author) Frank Gruber. At the time this story appeared in Star Ranger #1 (Feb. 1937), his Oliver Quade, Human Encylopedia stories were about to make the jump from Thrilling Detective to Black Mask. Found on comicbookplus courtesy of Yoc. 

A Brand New Classic: BILLY (THE KID) by Peter Meech

Author Peter Meech didn't just write this book, he painstakingly crafted every sentence from first to last. There's a big difference. The average novel, if it tells a satisfying story, can get by with prose that's merely adequate. The truly great books are those that excel in both story and the way that story is told.

Billy (the Kid) is that rare animal that excels in both.

The premise is a great one. Billy McCarty, a retired dentist in the quiet town of Pueblo, Colorado, tells everyone he meets he used to be Billy the Kid. Was he really? That's the central question of the novel— but there's a whole lot more going on.

Peter Meech offers and intimate and thoughtful portrayal of a short period in McCarty's life. And "Kid" or not, he's a fascinating character. In his memory—or imagination (or both) he reflects on the past he may (or may not) have had fighting in the Lincoln County War, landing with the Rough Riders in Cuba, working for Buffalo Bill's Wild West, meeting Jesse James, and seeking spiritual enlightenment with the Mescalero Apache. 

In the present, meanwhile, he's playing mentor to a kid whose father is in trouble, trying to spark the prettiest widow in town, and walking a thin and deadly line between rival bootleggers. And all while, he's collecting "Kid" memorabilia and plugging away on his memoir, to be called My Life and Times.

Part of the fun is seeing how an Old Westerner is adapting to the changing times. It's the early 1930s, a world with Cadillacs, Tommy guns, Prohibition, Zippo lighters, Standard Oil, Fats Waller, Blondie and Dagwood, Mars bars, the Reverend Fulton J. Sheen, Piggly Wiggly and the planet Pluto. We see Billy driving a Model T, going to the movies, discovering Wonder Bread, drinking Coca-Cola, reading Burma Shave signs and listening to The Lone Ranger on the radio.

But it's not all fun and games. Mr. Meech deals in serious themes like grief and loss, parental and social responsibility, the Seen and the Unseen, what it feels like to kill, and what it means to be a man. There's something for everyone here: humor, romance, murder and gunslinging action. And all elegantly told.

Billy (the Kid) is a book you don't want to miss.

Forgotten Books: THE DEAD-LINE by W.C. Tuttle (1927)

If anybody knows exactly how many Hashknife Hartley and Sleepy Stevens books there are - and what they are - I'd sure like to know. 

The best source I've seen, Robert Sampson's fifth volume of Yesterday's Faces (called Dangerous Horizons), lists twenty-seven books, some with more than one title, but I've found at least a couple of those to be non-Hashknife novels, and Sampson himself admitted the list is incomplete. 

I'd also like to know where the various pieces of those novels made their first appearance in pulps, and whether they had all appeared in pulps, or if some - or pieces of some - first appeared in books. I'd be glad to compile all that myself, if I had a complete set of Tuttle's books, complete runs of Adventure and Short Stories pulps, and a few particular issues of Argosy. But I won't be holding my breath for that to happen. 

The Dead-Line, published in England in 1927 and the U.S. in 1941 (if not sooner), is likely one of the earliest Hashknife and Sleepy adventures published in book form. A novella by that title (yet to be examined by me) appeared in the Oct 20, 1924 issue of Adventure.

Unlike most of its breed, this digest appears to be unabridged.

Hashknife and Sleepy made their debut in that magazine in July 1920, and their first few appearances were standalone short stories. Over the next fifteen years, they appeared in close to forty issues, taking a few side-trails into Argosy. In 1939, they moved to Short Stories, where they had more thirty more adventures. 

Book publication of the series followed no rhyme or reason, with many appearing only in England, and some as late as 1967, in paperback only. Yep, it's a mare's nest.

While not the best of the bunch, The Dead-Line is still a fun read. Tuttle's work is full to the brim with eccentric characters and humorous dialogue, but what makes the series great are the personalities - and the relationship - of Hashknife and Sleepy.

Most Tuttle books are mystery stories set in the Old West, and this is no exception. In many stories, the two are undercover range detectives, hired by a cattleman's association to bust up trouble. But in other cases, as in The Dead-Line, they stumble upon the trouble themselves, and can't resist joining in. 

The "dead-line" of the title is an invisible line-in-the-sand drawn by cattle ranchers in an attempt to prevent a sheepherding magnate invading their territory. To spice things up, there's a sort of Romeo and Juliet marriage between a cattleboy and a sheepgal, whose ranch is smack dab in the middle of the action. And just as the fuse is about to be lit, fate tosses Hashknife and Sleepy into the mix. They are introduced thisaway:

In their years of ambling around the West, the boys have made a lot of friends and enemies, and seem to meet some of each wherever they go. It's always fun to see the the bad 'uns squirm and bolt for cover as they anticipate tangling with them again.

As the passage above foretells, our heroes find a way to heal old wounds and bring peace to the valley. But the fun is in how they do it, and who they do it to. So like all of their adventures, this one is highly recommended.

Forgotten Stories: THEIR GUARDIAN FROM HELL by Norbert Davis (1937)

This post is a rerun from dang near ten years ago, but I wanted to read it again and figured somebody else might like to, too. 

"Their Guardian from Hell" appeared in the March 1937 issue of Star Western.

Want more Norbert Davis westerns? You'll find them in the 2011 Black Dog Books collection Dead Man's Brand.