GALLOW GHOST By Barry Cord Ace Books, 1967 The man Hell rejected. When the cold swept over the Texas Badlands, it brought something even more deadly with it: a force so violent and evil that even the harsh winter was nothing compared to it A lone rider came out of the infamous outlaw hideout in the Tenejos hills. That rider called himself by the name of a man who had been hanged twenty years before – and he was riding now to bring vengeance and terror on those who had brought him to the gallows. This slim, strangely dapper gunman rode into the rangeland and left death and destruction on h ..read more

  SIX GRAVES TO SUNRISE By Brett McKinley A Cleveland Western (No. 1149) from Cleveland Publishing – year unknown. As you can see from the cover image the author is announced as being Brett McKinley, inside it states that it is by Emerson Dodge. Before anyone wastes anytime trying to work out just which of them actually wrote Six Graves to Sunrise I’ll tell you that McKinley and Dodge are both pseudonyms for the same person; author Paul Wheelahan.  Six Graves to Sunrise is a well-written traditional western the moves forward at a gallop. The plot turns up often in westerns; that of a ..read more

  SLOCUM BURIED ALIVE Book 424 of 430 + 17 Giant Editions By Jake Logan Cover illustration by Sergio Giovine Jove, June 2014 Passing uneasily through the dried-up town of Espero, Texas, John Slocum learns soon enough that his apprehension is justified. After a not-so-friendly welcome at the Six Feet Under Saloon, he’s given the choice between a bullet or a bit of employment: Escort the town mortician’s strikingly pretty bride-to-be from a train station at Dexter Junction – in exchange for a hefty sum. But with someone after the gunslinger and the mysterious beauty, Slocum reckons that the ..read more

  BLOODY JOE MANNION 5 ALL MY SINS REMEMBERED By Peter Brandvold Wolfpack Publishing, October 2022 When the savage bounty hunter Ulysses Xavier Lodge comes to town wanting to spark one of Jane Ford’s pretty doxies at the San Juan Saloon & Hotel, Jane and two bouncers give the bear-like giant the bum’s rush. Incensed, Lodge returns and shoots Jane, grievously wounding her. Jane and Bloody Joe had been on the outs, their marriage dissolved, but now with Jane’s life teetering on the edge, Joe realizes how much he really loves the pretty redhead and what a fool he’s been. Enraged and know ..read more

  BADGE FOR BRADDOCK By Kirk Hamilton A Coronado Western (No. 1063) from Cleveland Publishing – year unknown. Kirk Hamilton is one of a handful of pseudonyms used by Australian author Keith Hetherington; a writer who had 800 – 1,000 stories published. Those put out by Cleveland fall into the novella category of story length. Due to the short length of this tale, there is no room for padding, no room for anything that doesn’t propel the story forwards at a brisk pace. Braddock is a bounty hunter, a type of man despised by many, especially when his latest prey is brought in dead and backsho ..read more

  WESTERN NOVELS and Short Stories British Edition, Vol. 1, No. 5 L. Miller & Son Ltd. London According to the FictionMags Index, 105 issues of this pulp were published in America. Only a handful came out in the UK – eight published by L. Miller & Son, and another three were published by Thorpe & Porter. I only own two, both from L. Miller & Son, neither of which contain a date to indicate the year it came out. The stories in the UK editions seem to have been sourced from a variety of American pulps. Vol. 1, No. 5 has 64 pages and the opening novella takes up 35 of thos ..read more

  HODGE By Matt Chisholm Panther Books, 1958 The stranger rode into the dusty cowtown . . . and there was Cass, who should have been dead! But he wasn’t, he was the sheriff, and the feud which had simmered in years gone by, blazed out with renewed violence. Cass was now backed by the law and in no time at all he had planned a ‘legal’ killing . . . and the noose hung ready. This was Matt Chisholm’s second book, and his first to feature characters he would write about again. Matt Chisholm is a pseudonym for author Peter Watts, who also wrote westerns as Cy James and Luke Jones. Altogether ..read more

HAWKE 1 RIDE WITH THE DEVIL By Robert Vaughan HarperTorch, November 2004 Mason Hawke had success, fame, respect. Then war made him a murderer – and left him scarred in the worst possible way. Haunted by a past as black as the depths of Perdition, Hawke’s looking for a place to start over, to disappear. And Salcedo is just a stop along the trail. A small piece of Hell in Texas, it’s a town once run by outlaws and now ruthlessly bullied by a mob that’s twice as bad, though they call themselves “lawmen.” And the top dog’s a man who was once Hawke’s childhood friend. Mason Hawke wants no part of ..read more

HELL BOUND FOR SPINDRIFF By Dale Graham The Crowood Press, 2017 When outlaw Denny Blake betrayed the Arizona Raiders during a bank robbery in the town of Spindriff, he little realized the storm he would unleash. Sentenced to twenty years in Arizona’s notorious Yuma prison, gang leader Smokin’ Joe McCabe has vowed to kill Blake and burn the town to the ground, renaming it Hellfire. Escaping after only two years, McCabe amasses a new gang and heads for Spindriff. On the trail he encounters another prodigal who has run foul of the town’s spineless officials. Red Spot Rick Norton has his own reas ..read more

GUNSMOKE By Gary McCarthy Cover art by Bill Dodge Berkley Boulevard, December 1998 Amidst the peril and confusion of a frontier town, Marshal Matt Dillon is a man who stands up. For justice. For honor. And for the safety of Dodge City’s law-abiding citizens. No gunman is too fast, no stage robber too cunning, no crisis too large for this fearless lawman of the West… When Doc suffers a mild heart attack, Matt Dillon must find a young frontier doctor to help the aging man with his workload. Dr. Jerome Gentry seems to fit the bill. He quickly becomes popular with the townspeople after mending a ..read more