Long Ride to Serenity

By Harry Jay Thorn

The Crowood Press

Hardback March 2016

Paperback, July 2019

This is the story of a range war, the story of a railroad right of way, of murder, of greed and corruption littering the long dark trail from the East Coast of America, to south Texas. This is the story of the township of Serenity, and the people who live and die there. Above all it is the story of Louise Kettle, a frontier woman and her love for the aging gunfighter, a living legend, a man with a voice in the White House.

He rides that long dark trail leading back from the hollows of western Kentucky, and on to the slaughterhouse they call Shiloh. He is the fastest gun south of the Picket wire, and always behind him is a stone-cold killer on a mission from God. This is the story of the pistolero, shootist and gentleman, Rio Jack Fanning: The Undertaker…. 

As many will know, Black Horse Westerns have been issued as hardbacks only for many years, although they are now also coming out as ebooks once the hardbacks have reached their market. Crowood have also decided to test the market for paperback versions and have put out a small number of books from their backlist in this format which sell at roughly half the price of the hardbacks. The paperbacks are very similar in size to the hardbacks. The book I read was the paperback version.

Harry Jay Thorn is a pseudonym used by English author Chris Adam Smith, an ex-movie magazine producer, merchant sailor and military policeman. He writes westerns for the Black Horse Western line under both those names. I have read quite a few of his books and have always found them to be entertaining reads. 

Fanning is a compelling character but he is not the only one who grips the imagination, the killer does too and his history with Fanning adds a neat twist to this fast-moving tale that involves many people from all over America. Fanning’s relationship with Louise Kettle adds a touch of romance, and her struggle to accept the more vicious side of The Undertaker is fascinating to read. 

As Death claims more an more victims you have to wonder who will be alive by the story’s conclusion, an end that sees all the plot-threads tied up neatly with a promise of a bright future for those who survive. 

This is a book that I think would appeal to all fans of the western genre and like the books I’ve previously read by this author I was once again left with the desire to read more of his work very soon.

From the Vineyards of Hell

By Harry Jay Thorn

The Crowood Press, April 2017

When ex lawman Captain Joshua Beaufort, late of Hood’s Texas Brigade, marches clear of the hell that was Gettysburg he has no intention whatsoever of any further engagement in the Civil War; he has, in his own words, killed enough Yankees. But the war has not finished with the Confederate captain and, captured by Union troops, he is given a choice – help to end the war on their terms or spend the rest of it in a prisoner-of-war camp. Colonel Horatio Vallance and the mysterious E.J. Allen persuade him it is in his best interests to cooperate with the North. So, in company with and under the watchful eye of young Corporal Benbow, Beaufort returns to his home state of Texas to old loves, old friends and old enemies. His task, to bring back the head of Buford Post, a notorious warmonger and gunrunner who is in possession of 300 stolen Henry repeating rifles….

A book that is mainly told in the first person, occasionally switching to the third when dealing with events that don’t include the main character, is not that common in Black Horse Westerns. Even less so is the fact that this story is set during the American Civil War and the opening sequences feature the horrors of Manassas and Gettysburg.

Like many books that deal with war this one throws up a few questions about the futility of it all. This includes the mission Beaufort finds himself on, that of trying to retrieve the stolen rifles so the Confederates can’t kill Union soldiers with them so they can then be used by the latter to kill the former. Whichever way round it is it’ll all lead to a waste of life, as is said in a discussion about what will happen to the rifles if Beaufort succeeds in getting them back from the gunrunners, “Does it really matter that much who gets the rifles, the North or the South? They will still kill hundreds of men.”

Harry Jay Thorn tells his tale at a great pace, his descriptions of battle quite graphic at times. Beaufort is not a man without faults, and we even begin to wonder about his motives through a suggestion by a secondary character. Beaufort is also a likeable lead which is good as I’ve seen comment that this book is the first in a new series to feature Joshua Beaufort and if the future books are as good as this one than that is one series I’m looking forward to reading.

Hard Ride to Glory

By Harry Jay Thorn

Crowood Press, August 2016

Griffin Boone is happy in his Wyoming valley; he has his Arrowhead ranch, his close friends, a good stock of cattle and a job as a part time deputy sheriff in the county of Liberty. Boone has ridden through the battlefields of the Civil War, served throughout with John Bell Hood’s Texas Brigade, he has survived the horror of battle and found peace and solitude with a woman and a shared past. That long-ago trail they once unknowingly rode draws them ever closer together until their lives are threatened by Heck Thomas and his outlaw crew of gunfighters and vagabond thieves. Ride with Boone from the peaceful town of Liberty to the ruins of Glory, a ghost town in the foothills of the Big Horn Mountains where past meets present in a blaze of gunfire. Griffin Boone is a quiet, unassuming man, a gentleman – but make no mistake, you cross him at your peril….

Harry Jay Thorn takes the unusual approach of writing this story in both the first and third person point of view. Thorn blends the two types of storytelling so smoothly I hardly noticed the switch from one to the other.

Most of the characters are likeable in some way, and that includes Thomas’ outlaw band – I did say most as it’s one of them, Huck Flynn who is the odd one out and it will be him who causes all the problems, including a falling-out among the outlaws that will see Boone determined to bring them to justice.

The book contains plenty of fast, bloody action and a few surprises too, including one at the end of the final showdown.

Harry Jay Smith is one of a number of pseudonyms Chris Adam Smith uses, alongside his real name, for writing his Black Horse Westerns and my collection contains quite of few of them. On the strength of this book I think it’s time I dug out some more of his work.

Black Horse Westerns are now available as both hardbacks and ebooks.