Street & Smith's WESTERN ADVENTURE - Feb. 1957

 

Street & Smith’s WESTERN ADVENTURE
British Edition, February 1957, Vol. 1, No. 8
Cover art by H.W. Scott

As far as I can tell, most, if not all, the stories published in the 43 issues of the British pulp Street & Smith’s Western Adventure were originally published in the American pulp Street & Smith’s Western Story, of which there were over 2,000 editions. 

The cover art was altered a bit for the British pulp but this is restricted to the text so a new title could be incorporated. I’ve included an image of the original at the end of this review, with a list of the story titles and notes on where they were first published – as you’ll see they don’t all come from a single issue of Western Story.

All of the yarns in the February 1957 edition are short stories, all seven or eight pages in length. Also mixed in are five columns; Where to Go and How to Get There by John North, Mines and Mining by J.A. Thompson, Range Savvy by H. Fredric Young, Guns and Gunners by Phil Sharpe, The Roundup – author unknown. 

The opening story is Doomed Cargo by Norman A. Fox. This is a tale about a young riverboat deck sweeper who learns how to stand-up for himself when he finds the courage and initiative, he didn’t know he had, to thwart an attempt to steal the riverboat’s cargo and kill everyone onboard. I’ve only read a couple of other stories by Fox, and this is the most enjoyable so far, perhaps because I like riverboat tales.  

Hot-Lead Headliners by John Colohan is next. I’ve not read anything by him before so was interested to sample his work. The story involved committing murder to cover up a previous killing. A drunk newspaper man overhears the bad guys plotting this new assassination attempt and knows he must do something to stop it happening. How he does this adds intrigue to the tale. Colohan also has a neat surprise waiting to be revealed at the end. Colohan’s tale proved to be a fun read. 

Track Treachery by E.C. Lincoln is set in modern times and is about horse racing. Why would a leading horse suddenly turn and head to the side of the track and thus lose the race? I was intrigued enough to want to know the answer to that question so I struggled through the story to find out. The writing style didn’t click with me and I very nearly gave up with it. I probably would have done so had it been any longer. 

After the disappointing pervious story, I was hoping that Murder Gun by B. Bristow Green would be better and I got my wish. This is a bank robbery tale where an innocent stranger to town gets accused of being one of the hold-up men. His capture leads to a make-shift court being set up that provides some tense scenes and a neat twist. I’ve never read anything by B. Bristow Green before and this story left me eager to explore more of his work.  

Easy Does It by C.K. Shaw is the first of three stories she wrote that featured Windy Bill Wicks. I’ve seen a note saying that this tale was originally published as East Does It, but I think the U.K. title is correct as Wicks is told to take things easy more than once. In fact, the opening words are “Easy Windy.” The story is written in the first person and involves two sets of ranch hands at loggerheads with each other over a couple of slashed saddles and a knife that is found beside them. Of course, the knife owner says it wasn’t him and the knife was stolen. Proving this is what the story is about. This was another difficult to read tale due to its old-fashioned style. It was an ok story but didn’t make me want to read the other Windy Bill tales or any more of Chloe Kathleen Shaw work.

The next story was much better than the previous one. White Water Run by Hugh B. Cave is about a Mountie tracking down a murderer. It contains some gripping scenes of canoe travel through treacherous waters, surprises and a neat twist to the end. This was by far my favourite story in this issue of Western Adventure. 

The final tale is Dead Man’s Horse by J. Lane Linklater in which a man has to make a choice of whether to hinder or help the law. Whichever way he chooses will mean a change to the way of life he has known which sees his word ruling the lives of those that live in and near Quiet Gulch. People can be safe there, whether good or bad as long as there aren’t any killings. Then a body is found… Linklater’s story is fast-paced and gripping and even though events play out as I expected I still found it to be a fun read.

For me, this issue of Western Adventure proved to be a patchy read in terms of quality of storytelling but the good far outweighed the bad. I’d only read stories by one of the authors before (Norman A. Fox) and have now added a couple more authors to my want to read more of list. 

Doomed Cargo by Norman A. Fox – originally published in Street & Smith’s Western Story, January 1941

Hot-Lead Headlines by John Colohan – original publication unknown

Track Treachery by E.C. Lincoln – originally published in Street & Smith’s Western Story, January 1941

Murder Gun by B. Bristow Green – originally published in Street & Smith’s Western Story, December 1942

Easy Does It by C.K. Shaw – Street & Smith’s Western Story, December 1942 

White Water Run by Hugh B. Cave – originally published in Street & Smith’s Western Story, February 1942

Dead Man’s Horse by J. Lane Linklater – originally published in Street & Smith’s Western Story, February 1942

THE LONESOME DEATH OF JOE SAVAGE

 

THE LONESOME DEATH OF JOE SAVAGE
By C.J. Sommers
Cover Art by Prieto Muriana
Robert Hale, November 2012

A sense of family duty led Tracy Keyes to search for his cousin, the notorious Wyoming bad man, Joe Savage. His mother wished to know if he was dead or alive – and so did half the lawmen and bounty hunters in the North County.

Tracy hadn’t seen Savage since they were boys and wasn’t sure he’d even recognize his criminal cousin if they met face to face. Carrying the onus of being related to the infamous Savage made things no easier for him, nor did the bounty hunters who dogged his trail, believing that Tracy could lead them to the outlaw. By the end of the long journey, Tracy was convinced that he was only following Joe Savage into his own grave….

C.J. Sommers doesn’t believe in giving his hero an easy time of it. Tracy will be on the wrong end of fists and have plenty of lead slung at him. He soon realizes he can’t trust anyone, and nearly everyone he meets tells him Savage is dead, and good riddance. If he is dead, then where is his grave? This question, and plenty of others such as who owns the land that Savage had bought now that he is dead add some strong mystery elements to this fast-moving tale. It's difficult to say anything else about the plot without including spoilers. 

There’s not as much action in this book as others I have read by this author, but it really doesn’t need it as it’s Tracy’s attempts to unravel the mysteries he’s presented with that easily kept my attention, so much so that I hadn’t realized there hadn’t been as much gunplay as I might have expected until I thought about it. 

I’ve read quite a few Black Horse Westerns written by C.J. Sommers and have found them all to be gripping reads and The Lonesome Death of Joe Savage also falls into that category. C.J. Sommers is just one of three pseudonyms Paul Lederer used for his BHWs; the other two pen-names being Logan Winters and Owen G. Irons and I’ve read many of his stories under those names too and I have yet to be disappointed by any of his books. Lederer didn’t just write westerns for Robert Hale Ltd., he also wrote for some of the American publishers too under a variety of names.

American readers can get a copy here.

UK readers can get a copy here.

THE VULTURE

 

THE BADGE
Book 17 of 24
THE VULTURE
By Bill Reno
Cover art by Shannon Stirnweis
Bantam Books, June 1990

To a violent land, a frontier yet untamed, came a man who wore a badge of law and order. He faced the myriad dangers and paid the price in blood to become one of the most enduring heroic figures of the Old West.

Victorio “the Vulture” Condor is the vicious bandito who has stained the Pecos red with blood. Yet no one has felt the full force of his brutality…until now. As vultures circle hungrily over the bodies of his dead brothers, Victorio declares war on the Texas Rangers – and on Lieutenant Mark Gray, the man who strung them up. One by one, the Rangers will fall before his guns: but not the shrewd Lieutenant. For Gray is a hard man to kill, and as hunter turns to hunted, Victorio will find he’s an even harder man to escape.

The Badge books are about different lawmen, although a few do appear in more than one entry in the series. All the books can be read as stand-alone novels so there is no need to read them in order. 

Even though Lieutenant Mark Gray is the hero of this story the author spends as much time, if not more, telling the reader what Victorio is doing, painting a savage picture of this man and his gang. It seems that Gray and the Texas Rangers are no match for this bandit as the body count grows.

I would hazard a guess that the author, Lew A. Lacy writing as Bill Reno, had some fun coming up with all the different ways Victorio deals out death. The Vulture doesn’t want his targets to die quickly, he wants them to suffer for killing his brothers. Victorio takes great pleasure in sending the Ranger Captain Terrell Sears the badges of his dead men along with a black vulture feather. It’s not just Rangers who are marked to die, there’s a judge and a couple of lawmen too. 

The book doesn’t have a complicated plot, it is a straight-forward tale of revenge that is fairly brutal at times. From reading other books in this series, I couldn’t begin to guess how it would end as the author will kill off the main characters to add lasting impact to his tales. Would that happen in this one? It certainly seemed to be heading down that trail. 

I did feel the final confrontation was drawn out a bit too long, but the final scenes will definitely stay in my mind for a long time and provided a fitting end to this excellent story. For me, The Vulture is one of the best entries I’ve read in this series and I’m looking forward to reading book 18 soon.

RAILS INTO HELL

 

RAILS INTO HELL
A Faraday Novel: 6 
By Brent Towns 
Wolfpack Publishing, October 2025

The railroad’s arrival promised progress, but in Sagebrush Creek, it came riding on a tide of blood.

A surveyor lies dead, murdered to halt the iron rails’ advance. Matthew Faraday knows one man who can uncover the truth—former gunfighter Jack Quade. But Faraday’s reasons aren’t entirely about justice. Trouble’s brewing in the hills: a range war with Quade’s estranged father, Vince, at its heart.

Years ago, Vince Quade disavowed his son. Now Jack must face a father who wants nothing from him—least of all help. But with a killer on his trail and tensions ready to explode into open war, Jack has no choice but to fight on two fronts: mending a broken bond and stopping a murderer before Sagebrush Creek becomes a graveyard.

Will Jack Quade bring peace to a town on the brink—or will the railroad carry him straight into hell? 

I read the original six book Faraday series when they were first published at the end of the 1980’s. Wolfpack republished four of them, renumbered and in a slightly different order. Two brand new books have also been published carrying on with the number sequence from Wolfpack. All the Wolfpack books carry the authors real name on the cover whereas the original run saw them published under the pseudonym of William Grant. 

I’ve also read a number of westerns by Brent Towns, and like the original Faraday series, enjoyed them greatly.

Matthew Faraday is the head of the Faraday Security Service, a railroad detective agency. So far, each book features a different undercover agent and Faraday himself takes a background role. Brent Towns follows this premise perfectly and has created an engaging hero with a complicated past that will create additional problems for him to overcome. Some of the troubles he will face he knows about; others will take him by surprise. 

Each chapter is broken into a number of short scenes that follow different characters so I was left hanging on what each of them would do next and how it would affect others actions. The inclusion of some excellent twists and turns ensured I’d keep reading. The possibility of a range war merging with the mystery of who murdered the railroad surveyor was also a question I had. Were these two elements of the story connected in any way? 

The writing style is fluid, fast paced and gritty. If you like a lot of gunplay in your westerns then Towns’ will certainly keep you satisfied. Towns also springs some unexpected surprises on the reader too. 

All I can now hope is that Wolfpack Publishing decide to continue with this series and that Brent Towns gets to write another. 

American readers can get a copy here.

UK readers can get a copy here.

THE KILLERS FROM YELLOW ROCK

 

THE KILLERS FROM YELLOW ROCK
By Jeff Pintabona
Veritas Entertainment, September 2025

$25,000 in blood money. One mountain. No second chances.

Blood money has a way of calling every gunman for miles.

High atop Yellow Rock Mountain, notorious gunfighter Mort Totten sits like a vulture king, with a $25,000 bounty on his head. Nineteen men have tried their luck. Nineteen men never came back alive.

But the lure of fortune is stronger than fear. When young trail hand Jerry Dixon and his Apache partner Coyotero set their sights on Totten, they’re drawn into a deadly game of ambushes, betrayals, and gunsmoke. Soon, Dixon finds himself riding alongside the very outlaw he meant to kill—facing merciless bounty hunters, corrupt lawmen, desert ambushes, and savage killers who want the reward for themselves.

From dusty Nevada canyons to lawless frontier towns, The Killers from Yellow Rock explodes with blazing six-gun duels, knife fights, ambushes under desert stars, and the kind of larger-than-life characters that define the Western myth.

Although this is the second western from Jeff Pintabona it is the first I’ve read by him and what an entertaining read it turned out to be. 

The opening attempts on Totten’s life captured my imagination easily and once I found out that Dixon wasn’t really after the bounty but wanted Totten to help him take revenge on a man Totten used to partner the story really grabbed me and ensured I’d keep turning the pages.

Totten is an out-and-out killer. A man who will kill the opposition anyway he can with the least danger to himself. This put him at odds with Dixon who refuses to kill a man in cold blood. As they travel towards their target, Totten attempts to change Dixon’s mind whilst teaching him how to be quick with gun, knife and fist. There is plenty of trouble to face whilst on their journey which highlights some of the weaknesses Dixon has. 

Characterization is done well and I did notice that the reader never gets to share Totten’s thought process, which helps make him appear somewhat cold-hearted, but he occasionally acts in a way or says something that hints there is more to him than what we see at face-value. 

I don’t really want to reveal anything else about the plot as it would spoil the surprises the reader has coming. I did begin to wonder who of the main characters, if any, would be alive by the end.

The Killers from Yellow Rock is a tough, gritty read that is filled with hard-hitting action. Pacing is excellent as it builds towards its exciting final showdown that left me hoping for a sequel as I need to read more about the survivors. Recommended. 

American readers can get a copy here.

British readers can get a copy here.

THE LAW OF BEN HODGE

 

THE LAW OF BEN HODGE
By Matt Chisholm
Cover art by Walter Popp
Panther, July 1959

The town simmered with hate between the north and the south, between the townsman and the drover, between the law and the lawless.

Hodge tramped the streets of the old town with a star on his vest, knowing the mob would kill him so that they could hang his prisoner…knowing the Texas drovers would kill him to rescue the murderer.

Hodge knew that there could only be one law now…his law – The Law of Ben Hodge.

This is the third and final book Matt Chisholm wrote about Ben Hodge. The previous stories are briefly mentioned but you don’t need to have read them to fully enjoy this tale. In those earlier books, Hodge was trying to save himself from being hanged. In this one Hodge is trying to protect a guilty man from lynch law.

Hodge finds himself reluctantly wearing a star when the towns’ lawman is laid up. A drunken cowboy has accidently shot and killed a child. The townsfolk want his neck stretched immediately. The drovers want to free their friend. Everybody wants Hodge out of the way so they can do what they feel is right. Both sides prepare to fight each other so they can get to the man they want.

Once Hodge accepts the badge, he intends to enforce the law. He soon has his suspicions about the killing. Was it accidental or done on purpose? If the latter, what is the motive? Behind his back, powerful townsmen plot the death of Hodge’s prisoner and professional gunmen prepare to carry out their boss’s orders. 

Chisholm builds the tension well as the story swiftly moves towards its violent conclusion. Along the way there are plenty of bursts of action. Hodge takes some punishment too. As the plot becomes more complicated it is hard to see how any of the main characters will survive. Hodge’s wife Rose has a part to play, although she is unaware of the danger she is in and Hodge doesn’t know either. 

I did feel this story wasn’t as strong as the previous Hodge books. That may be because I’ve read many more tales about a lawman trying to protect his prisoner from a mob than I have where the protagonist literally has a rope around his neck and has moments to somehow free himself from the noose. Having said that, The Law of Ben Hodge was still a very entertaining read and left me looking forward to reading more from this author very soon.

Matt Chisholm is a pseudonym used by Peter Watts, a British writer who has long been one of my favourite western authors. 

SHERIFF OF BIG HAT

 

SHERIFF OF BIG HAT
By Barry Cord
A Wagon Wheel Western, 1958

Three men rode into Del Rio on three different trails. They were known as the Unholy Three – and they deserved their nickname. Doc, Jackson, and the Kid, were their names. They had nothing in common – except a willingness to hire out their guns.

Barry Cord packs a lot into this short western. Questions come at the reader from the first pages. Who are the Unholy Three being the main one to start with. They ride together but know little about each other. It seems they’ve been hired to stop a range war, but it soon become evident there’s a lot more at stake than that. 

It’s not long before the Kid’s past is revealed. Del Rio is the town the Kid grew up in. It’s to town he fled with the accusation of murder hanging over his head. Soon his relationships with various townsfolk cause more problems, especially when the Kid rips the badge off the town’s sheriff and pins it on his own shirt. What of the girl the Kid left behind? She’s the daughter of the old sheriff and the sister of the man the Kid is supposed to have killed.

As the tale races through its many twists and turns it becomes evident there isn’t going to be a happy ending for many of the characters, if any. There’s a dark tone to the proceedings. Men make promises that they’ll kill each other. Bullets fly thick and fast. Some of the bad guys are obvious but the author keeps some a secret, such as who killed Ann’s brother and who murdered the Kid’s father. 

I’ve read quite a few books and short stories by Barry Cord and I can’t remember his descriptions of violence and torture ever being quite so graphic as they are in a couple of scenes in this book. 

Barry Cord is a pseudonym used by Peter Germano and I was once more thoroughly entertained by one of his books. This may not be the best of his work, but it is certainly worth reading. 

Arcadia House, who put out the Wagon Wheel Westerns really let the author down and it really makes me wonder if they employed a proof reader. For instance, a word that should finish a sentence isn’t there, but it does turn up at the end of the previous page all by itself. There are also words with missing letters or they are so badly printed it’s hard to read them. The gaps between words and sentences vary in size too. None of this makes it unreadable though. I do have one or two other Wagon Wheel Westerns and I am now intrigued to see of they are as badly printed as this one.