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.

RIDE WITH THE DEVIL

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 small frontier-town civil war. One’s brewing here, and there’ll be no way to stay neutral – especially when conscience and a killer force his hand. But doing the right thing could expose the past Hawke’s so desperate to hide – and even dying might be a preferable fate . . . 

Robert Vaughan came up with an interesting hero for this five-book series. Mason Hawke is an accomplished pianist. He’s toured Europe and is internationally recognized as one of the best. But he put all that fame and fortune on hold as he felt the need to return to America to fight in the Civil War. A conflict that taught him another skill, one he became extremely good at – killing. After that war he became a drifter, going from town to town earning his way playing piano in various saloons, which is why he ended up in Salcedo.

The story contains flashbacks to the war, to Hawke’s childhood. It’s not only Hawke who has to deal with a violent past. Flaire Delaney, who might be a romantic interest for Hawke, has her own demons to deal with. It’s also her brother that Hawke finds hanging from a tree and whose body he brings into town against the wishes of those who hanged him, which is the start of the troubles Hawke will have to deal with.

Vaughan also includes a real person in part of the book that strengthens how well-known Hawke is in the music world. Hawke takes Flaire to see a concert given by the American composer, pianist and virtuoso performer, Louis Moreau Gottschalk. Hawke and Flaire are taken backstage to Gottschalk’s dressing room where Flaire discovers the two men know each other very well. But it’s what is happening in Salcedo at the same time that will have violent repercussions for all involved. 

The story is told at a fast pace and includes some fairly horrific scenes. Vaughan switches between characters regularly as the tale unfolds in ever increasing tension before everything erupts in an explosive and gripping climax that could see Hawke’s childhood friend, Culpepper, and his band of Regulators get their comeuppance. 

I own, and have read, a lot of books written by Robert Vaughan, either under his own name or pseudonyms, and have yet to find one that I haven’t enjoyed. Ride with the Devil is right up there with the best of his work and has left me wanting to read the next book in the series as soon as I can.

American readers can get a copy here.

British readers can get a copy here.

THE TENDERFOOT

By Robert Vaughan

Wolfpack Publishing, May 2022

When Turquoise ranch hand Curly Stevens went into Flagstaff to meet his new employee arriving on the train, his first impression of Rob Barringer is of how big and strong the tenderfoot is. Rob’s eagerness to learn and his willingness to take on the most difficult jobs wins everyone over, including ranch foreman Jake Dunford, and Melanie Dunford, his beautiful daughter.

Ron is well-educated, and his demeanor and intelligence catches the attention of Melanie, causing him difficulty with ranch manager Lee Garrison, who believes he has an exclusive right to Melanie. Garrison makes life difficult for the ranch hands, and Rob in particular.

When Jake Dunford makes a public accusation that the ranch manager is stealing from the ranch, Garrison reacts by firing everyone, but it is Garrison who is in for a big surprise.

After reading a lot of books by Robert Vaughan, I’ve always known I can rely on him to provide an entertaining read, and this book reinforces that belief.

Vaughan has come up with an engaging set of characters and created a situation for them to survive that easily captured my imagination. Although readers know who Rob really is, and know what is going on at ranch, I still turned the pages eagerly as I wanted to see how the main characters would react when the various truths were revealed. Vaughan also places a little doubt on a couple of people – are they involved in the criminal activity that seems to be going on at the Turquoise Ranch?

The story starts in 1865 but soon moves forward twenty years to Rob Barringer deciding to leave his privileged life behind after deciding to go and learn the ropes of running a ranch from the ground up. Becoming a cowboy seems to be the ideal way to experience life on a ranch. As I said earlier, readers know who Rob really is from the moment he’s introduced to the story so I feel it’s safe to reveal that here too – Rob is the owner of the Turquoise Ranch, but none of the other characters know who he is and a main part of the story is Rob trying to discover if Garrison is stealing from the ranch. The growing attraction between Rob and Melanie add further complications as she is engaged to Garrison.

Vaughan builds the story well to its lively ending. The inclusion of an old-time cattle drive being one of the standout sections of the book for me. 

It has been quite a while since I read a book by Mr. Vaughan, and this one reminded me of what I’ve been missing. Time to hunt through my collection and add a couple more of his books to my to be read soon shelf, I think.

COVER GALLERY: BUSHWHACKERS

BUSHWHACKERS

By B.J. Lanagan

Cover art by Bill Dodge
(except book 7)

This nine book series was published by Jove. First book appeared in July 1997 and the last January 2000.
B.J. Lanagan was a pseudonym used by Robert Vaughan.

When the Civil War was over, the regular soldiers of the blue and gray returned to the peaceful lives they had known before. Not so for Win and Joe Coulter, members of Quantrill’s Raiders, the most brutal gang of Yankee hatin’ cutthroats ever assembled. They returned not as heroes, but as wanted men. Now they’re committed to a lifetime on the edge – experts with guns, with women, and with keeping just ahead of the hangman’s rope…

Like others in Missouri, Win and Joe Coulter didn’t take sides during the war. Until a band of marauding Yankees brutalized and murdered their parents. They had nothing left but each other and a desperate thirst for vengeance. Then they met William Quantrill and joined his bloodthirsty Raiders. Killing men at the drop of a hat, the Coulter brothers became two of the most wanted men in the West. And learned just how sweet – and deadly – revenge could be…

After the fall of the Confederacy, every one of Quantrill’s Raiders was a wanted man. But in San Saba, Texas, Yankee hatin’ and baitin’ were still favourite pastimes. Lured there by a promise of easy money, Win and Joe Coulter joined forces with a fiery redhead in a plan to rob her lover – the richest Yankee in the county. Win was happy to oblige the woman, in more ways than one. Because for men with a score to settle, the war wasn’t over – it had only just begun…

Win and Joe don’t like getting shot at, especially by varmints who don’t have skill enough to kill them. Then, after fending off an unsolicited attack, they find themselves a genuine lady in distress – bound, gagged, the works. Her name’s Pamela Wellington, and her daddy owns Camelot, a bright, shining sixty-thousand-acre kingdom in the middle of Texas. But like that golden ranch of yore, there’s foul-smelling evil afoot. And it’s not Joe Coulter’s boots…

Someone’s about to mess with the Bushwhackers. And that means someone’s about to be messed back.

All Win Coulter wanted was a nice hand of poker. But his hand was hotter than the Devil’s coffee mug, and he ended up winning the deed to a Belle Springs saloon named the Desert Flower. Now Win and his brother Joe, have a place to drink for free.

But Belle Springs is run by a sheriff as crooked as an old man’s spine. He runs his own watering hole, and he doesn’t cotton to competition. So it looks like the Bushwhackers will have to ante up a special “sheriff’s tax” – or get out of town.

Yeah, right.

Normally the Coulter brothers didn’t pay any mind to some varmint’s love life. But Win and Joe were down to their last dollars, so they agreed to find the guy’s long-lost lover, a little filly named Cat Clay. It seemed like their easiest job yet. Except that Cat was living smack-dab in the middle of a Mexican ranch war with bullets flying thicker than blazes.

Now they have to find a ruthless killer, settle a ranch dispute and rescue a very lovely lady in distress without ending up six feet under. All in a day’s work for these two men from Missouri…

Epitaph, Arizona. Nice place. Beer’s cold, at least. But Win and Joe barely get two drops to their lips before the shootin’ starts. When the smoke clears, a marshal and two lowlifes are dead, and the Coulter brothers are hip deep in a war.

On one side’s the ranchers. Other side’s the miners. Who’s good and who’s bad ain’t the issue. Who’s gonna survive is. And with the Coulters in town, every two-bit gunslinger’s chances just dropped to zero.

These ain’t the kind of fireworks Win and Joe were expectin’. The coldhearted massacre of a Bushwhacker’s family turns their Fourth of July festivities into a funeral. All signs point to the work of Kansas Charley Beckett, a Jayhawker who rode against the Bushwhackers during the war – and who lusts to gut every rebel soldier who ever forked a horse.

Now, the only red, white, and blue Win and Joe want to see are the red of his blood, the white of his eyes, and the blue of his body as it hangs from the gallows…

All Win and Joe want out of the tiny town of Sulphur Springs is a cold beer, a hot bath, and some warm company for the night. But Win’s company offers more than he bargained for when she confides that her brother has been murdered by an outlaw rustler bent on ruining every rancher for miles around. It’s more than the Marshal can handle, but word is that it’s something the Coulter brothers can…

The Coulter brothers have gone their separate ways for the time being. While Joe’s strikin’ gold, Win is being tracked by someone with a well-placed burr under his saddle…

But what really rankles Win is his less-than-hospitable welcome in Horseshoe, Nevada. After being left for dead in the street, all Win wants is a good meal, a cold beer, and the sultry coos of a soiled dove. All that stands in his way is a no-good sheriff, whose mouth is faster than his draw. Killing the man gets Win a date with the gallows. But you can’t count one Coulter out while his brother still has the gumption – and the guns – to do something about it…

COVER GALLERY: McMASTERS

McMASTERS

by Lee Morgan

Armed with a custom-built .70 caliber rifle, he is the law. To his friends, he is many things – a fighter, a lover, a legend. To his enemies, he is only one thing – the most dangerous man they have ever known…

Lee Morgan is a pseudonym behind which a variety of well-known western authors wrote this adult series. The first book being written by Giles Tippette, the second by James Reasoner, the third by Robert Vaughan, the fourth and sixth by David Jacobs. The fifth book by either Robert Vaughan or Charlie McDade. The first book appeared in June 1995 and the last in April 1996.

Once upon a time, Boyd McMasters had everything a man could want: a pretty young wife, a profitable working ranch, and a sheriff’s badge in West Texas. But that man died when a band of ruthless outlaws slaughtered his wife. The new McMasters is an angry man, and no amount of whiskey or women can change that fact. He stumbles into Oklahoma City, a filthy, ragged shadow of his old self. In desperation, Boyd’s older brother enlists him in the Cattleman’s Protective Association – giving him authority over local lawmen and, if necessary, a license to kill. And as Captain Boyd McMasters sets out to deal the West his own brand of justice, a legend is born…

When the Cattleman Protective Association’s Captain Boyd McMasters finds out that his next job is a case of cattle rustling in the little town of Silver Creek, Texas, he figures he’s in for a vacation. He couldn’t have been more wrong. The town’s biggest ranch, the JF Connected, is missing four head, wouldn’t be a big deal if they weren’t four prize bulls, worth about twenty thousand dollars. That’s a mighty big chunk of change – enough to kill for, it seems, because someone keeps drawing a bead on McMasters every time he goes into town. But when McMasters figures out who’s behind it all, he’s gonna send them on a vacation…a permanent one.

The Cattleman’s Protective Association’s Captain Boyd McMasters is through taking prisoners. He already put Curly and Frank Dobbs behind bars in New Mexico for murder and rape. But they broke out of jail and killed a deputy. Then they robbed an Arizona bank of over fifty thousand dollars and kidnapped a young lady and her five-year-old daughter. Luckily, the bank is one of the Association’s clients, and that gives McMasters the authority to hunt them down. And when “Bullet Boyd” catches up with the Dobbs boys, he’s gonna put them somewhere they’ll never escape from – their graves…

Smoke Tree, Arizona, is a dusty little town where people live in fear. A cutthroat gang of cattle rustlers called the Rock House Boys runs roughshod over the local ranchers. They steal at will, and anyone who fights back ends up full of lead. The U.S. marshal and the town sheriff are either too yellow or too busy fighting each other to do anything about it. That’s why ranchers have the Cattleman’s Protective Association to help them. And that’s why the Association hires men like Captain Boyd McMasters to solve its problems. McMasters has decided that the Rock House Boys are through, and that cattle rustling is finished in Smoke Tree. He’s made his decision – now he’s gonna enforce it. And anyone who disagrees can take it up with his rifle, Big .70…

The Nueces Strip, down near the Rio Grande, is home to a bunch of cutthroats who put fear into the Rangers, the marshals, and even their own mamas. It’s also home to a hardworking rancher named Ben Allison who losing thousands of beeves to moonlight rustlers. Sent in by the Cattleman’s Protective Association, Captain Boyd McMasters gets a tip from two beautiful señoritas. Word is it ain’t the usual Strip debris that’s robbing Allison…it’s a powerful honcho across the border. This midnight cowboy has big pesos and mean hombres in his employ, but McMasters has the mighty .70 working for him…

Amid the beauty of Montana’s Blue Pine Hills is a horrifying display of human nature’s ugly side. A twisted bunch called the Hell Killers has turned the locals yellower than a mountain man’s teeth, and for good reason. Not entertained by rustling cattle, the gang kills and mutilates them before moving on to the ranchers, their families, and anyone else they come across. The Cattleman’s Protective Association is fighting back – they’ve put cash bounties on the Hell Killers’ heads, and have sent McMasters to collect. And he and his Big .70 are gonna see to it that they visit Hell real soon…

Cover art by Morgan Kane, who signed his name as M. Kane. This series artwork borrows heavily from the style fronting romance books at the same time these were published. The man not wearing a shirt was a requirement. Whether these covers shout western is for you to decide. Interesting to note that the books carry a banner stating McMasters comes from the creators of Longarm and that Morgan Kane painted the first covers for that series too.

COVER GALLERY: FARADAY

FARADAY

By William Grant

A series of books following undercover detectives working for the Faraday Security Service as they attempt to keep the railroads safe. Six were published before Lynx Books went out of business. Two more announced books never saw the light of day. The series ran from July 1988 to May 1989.

William Grant is a pseudonym shared by five authors. James Reasoner wrote the first one, Paul Block the second, Robert Vaughan wrote books three, five and six and Bill Crider wrote the fourth. The two none-published books were number seven, Avalanche Run, by Crider and number eight, The Owlhoot Express, written by Chet Cunningham.

Matthew Faraday is as much a mystery as those he solves. But, as head of the Faraday Security Service, he’d already earned a reputation: tough, smart, fiercely loyal to his friends, dangerous to his enemies, and as much at home on the back of a horse as in a Kansas City boardroom.

And it is from such a place that his latest case comes. The Kansas Pacific Railroad is in trouble. Indian raids, sabotage, and murder have halted the laying of track that would tie the west – and the list of suspects rangers from Kansas City to the Nebraska railhead.

The mystery only deepens when Faraday dispatches his best undercover agent Daniel Britten to Nebraska – into a hornet’s nest. Now Faraday’s shuffling the clues in Kansas City – caught in a conflict between an old friend and an old sweetheart – getting closer to the secret that could cost his life, while Dan dodges bullets, arrows, and the attentions of two beautiful women – either of whom may hold the secret that will stop the railroad, and halt the destiny of The Iron Horse.

Indian raids. Armed bandits. Violent storms. These were nothing…at least not compared to a railroad man’s worst nightmare: Two trains. One track. A head-on collision. The ungodly sound of ripping metal. The terrified screams of the dying. And on the Colorado plains, it finally happened. A terrible accident. 

When two more trains meet the same grim fate, “accident” is not a satisfactory answer – and Matthew Faraday, the tough, smart honcho of Faraday Security Service, is called in to uncover the saboteurs. With the help of Nora Sutherland and Stuart Kennedy, two of his top operatives, and Jim Hart, a clever young newsman, he’s closing in on the murderous truth.

But time is running out – at the speed of a locomotive – as the Faraday agents take to the rails aboard a train headed for a date with disaster – while a cold, vicious mastermind plots their Collision Course.

The train-top murder of one of his female operatives has thrust Matthew Faraday, the wily chief of Faraday Security Service, into the dark and twisting tunnel of another railroad mystery, and a coded message in the dead woman’s pocket is the only clue.

But it’s enough to send Faraday to the War Department looking for answers, and two of his best undercover agents – Leah Saunders and Mike Rindell – into the heart of the Rebel South to save a Yankee gold shipment from the notorious Tyreen’s Raiders.

Now it’s a race for a fortune, by train, on foot, on horseback, and in a silk balloon…a race against time, treachery, and murder, where every turn of the track hides unseen friends, unsuspecting enemies, and death in several guises.

Until personal tragedy hit him, and he spent a year hitting the bottle, Jim Stone was once of Faraday Security’s top operatives – quick with his fists, or his gun.

Now Matt Faraday’s giving him a chance to make his way back. There’s trouble on the Denver & Rio Bravo line – the railroad carrying the Allen Players on a theatre tour to far Colorado. One of the troupe has been found dead on a dark stage. Murdered. And Stone’s been sent – undercover – to replace him and unravel the mystery. But the bodies are piling up faster than the clues, and everyone looks like a perfect suspect.

The stage directions in this case call for a train ambush, a deadly masquerade, screaming bullets, flashing swords, and a poisonous climax before the final curtain falls!

Many people believed that Ironsprings should be called Iron Fist, because that’s how self-serving Marshal Josh Wade and his deputized brothers ran things – letting gambling, boozing, brawling, and prostitution run rampant as long as Wade collected a “business tax” from the profiteers.

But Ironsprings was a railroad town as well, and there were signs that the rash of robberies plaguing the Union Pacific originated somewhere in Josh Wade’s domain.

That’s when Jared Macalester, the trackwalker, came to town. But Macalester was more than he appeared to be; he was Matt Faraday’s good friend and crackerjack agent gone undercover to uncover the truth, stop the crimes, and save the town in the process – but not until first facing ambush, train wrecks, a small civil war, pistolero Tim Quick, whose temper and gun matched his name, and the hottest blood-feud since the Earps and the Clantons reddened the dust of the O.K. Corral!

As our wounded nation heals itself in the aftermath of the Civil War, it is once more plunged into sorrow. In one treasonous moment President Abraham Lincoln is dead, and – though his assassin, John Wilkes Booth, is quickly caught – the treachery is far from over.

A plot is being hatched to kidnap Lincoln’s body from the funeral train that will carry the fallen leader through the countryside of mourners, from Washington to its final resting place in Springfield, Illinois.

Matthew Faraday has gotten wind of the plot – although its perpetrators are still a mystery. With the blessings of Secretary of War Edwin Stanton and the aid of his newest and boldest agent, Cole Yeager, Faraday is sworn to protect the great man’s body from desecration – while ambush, runaway locomotives, and death-dealing renegades wait up ahead of the Train of Glory.

West of the Pecos

REMINGTON

number 1 of 7

By James Calder Boone

Avon, June 1987

Judge Samuel Parkhurst Barnstall never makes Remington’s assignments easy. It’s hard enough to track down a trio of cutthroats who plundered a north Texas town, leaving a lawman strung up for the coyotes to finish. But bringing them back for trial – alive? That’ll take some sand.

Especially when their leader is the legendary Ramsey Clagg, 300 pounds of knife-wise buffalo skinner with a sweet tooth for torture. To even the odds, Remington must talk his way into Clagg’s Hell’s Door hideout. A door no lawman has ever seen swing open…and lived.

Judge Barnstall is a terrific character. His no-nonsense approach to law and order and his desire to hang outlaws to make an example of them to other would-be offenders is the reason he instructs Remington to bring back his prey alive. This, of course, leads to all kind of problems for the lawman.

Tracking down and capturing the first two cutthroats is easy enough and it seems like the lawman will be able to fulfil his task without killing anyone. But the leader of the trio of killers has a band of outlaws to back his play and Remington has no choice but to turn his guns on them in a deadly game of cat-and-mouse, where the lawman is the hunted. 

The story moves swiftly forward and is well-written. The prose made me want to keep turning the pages to see if Remington could possibly bring back all those he was charged to find alive. One of the highlights of the book is when Remington enters Clagg’s Hell and plays the part of an outlaw. I had in my mind that surely there would be someone in the gang who would recognize such a well-known lawman and I wasn’t disappointed with my guess, and from that moment the book really picks up in the action stakes. 

James Calder Boone is a pseudonym and this first book in the series was written by Jack Zavada and his storytelling and plotting made this a fine read. So much so that I’m looking forward to reading the next one soon, although it isn’t written by Zavada. In fact Zavada only wrote book one. A couple of much more well-known western authors, Robert Vaughan and Jory Sherman, came on board for the rest of the series. 

Interview: Robert Vaughan

My latest interview is with Robert Vaughan who has been writing for 53 years and during that time has seen round 350 books published, of which roughly 100 have been westerns.

When did you decide you wanted to be a writer?

I have always wanted to be a writer. Before I could write or read, I would make squiggly marks on a tablet, then make my mother, grandmother, or aunt listen to my stories.

What was the first novel you had published and if this wasn’t a western what was your first western?

My first novel was action/adventure novel about a bar in Korea where all the bar-girls were N. Korean spies. It was called Girls of Carnation House...published when I was 19. My first Western was probably a Jake Logan Western.....Cheyenne Bloodbath, I think.

 
 Which writers influence you?

 

Ernest Hemingway, James Jones, Herman Wouk, Joseph Heller, Bill Butterworth (WEB Griffin).

Which past western would you like to see back in print and why is this?

I would like to see YESTERDAY'S REVELLIE back in print...it is one of four that I have written about Custer and is, I think, the best one I have done.

Which western writers working today would you recommend?

I think Jory Sherman is as good a Western writer as any we have ever had.

Do you work on more than one book at a time?

I do a lot of books, but I do them serially. I can't work on more than one book at a time.

You’ve written westerns under a variety of pseudonyms, such as Jake Logan, Lee Davis Willoughby, B.J. Lanagan, Hank Mitchum, James Calder Boone, and Dale Colter, and I was wondering if you’ve enjoyed writing for any particular series more than others?

 

I've also written as T.J. Jack, K.C. McKenna, Ralph Compton, and another, best selling Western author whose name I can't disclose. I enjoyed writing the Stagecoach series as Hank Mitchum.

 

You’ve won a Spur Award, what was this for?

I won the SPUR for SURVIVAL, a story of the Donner Party. I wrote it as K.C. McKenna.

Which of your westerns would you recommend to someone who hasn’t read any of your work yet and why?

Again, I think I would say Yesterday's Reveille...which I wrote under my own name.

You wrote the book ‘Andersonville’, did you watch the series or just use the screenplay to base the book on?

I had a treatment for the screen play and wrote from that treatment. The book came out before the miniseries.

You wrote a series of books based on the TV series ‘The Wild Wild West’, are there any other TV western series you’d like to write books about?

I would like to do Gunsmoke, I think. That was my favorite TV Western.

What was it like being the host for three TV talk shows?

Fun, and hectic.

I believe you’ve put on a number of writer's retreats and conferences, could you tell us a little about these?

I enjoy them...people who come to them don't really learn anything new, I don't think, but they come to them to meet other writers...and to be motivated. I am more of a motivational speaker than I am an instructor. I'm not doing it this year, but for fifteen years I have hosted WRITE ON THE BEACH, where three writers come spend a week with me in my beach house and I work with them on their projects. It has been a very successful project, but it is exhausting for me, and I am getting old. Now I prefer to work with writers by long distance.

Other than westerns, what is your favourite genre to write in and why?

I like historical novels. I did a series for Bantam called AMERICAN CHRONICLES which was a decade by decade account, in novel form, of the 20th Century. I also did a five book series of WWII called THE WAR TORN, in which each book had as its main character, someone from one of the belligerent nations. America, Germany, France, Japan, and England.

How did your friendship with Bill Butterworth, better known as the best-selling military novelist W.E.B. Griffin, come about?

I met Bill over fifty years ago when we were both at Ft. Rucker, AL... he as a civilian working for the army, and I was in the army.

You’ve written books with other authors, such as ‘The Masada Scroll’ and ‘Armor of God’ with Paul Block, how do you go about such a joint venture?

Paul was my editor for a while when I was writing for Book Creations. We worked well together and became close friends and decided to do these books together.

Do you think paper produced books will ever be replaced with electronic books?

I hope not.

What do you think of the western genre today and what do you think the future holds for the western?

I think there will always be Westerns...it is the only truly American story. And we have some very good Western writers out there now. I won't name them because I might leave someone out that I don't intend to. But I think the genre is in good hands.

What is your favourite western movie and why?

Shane is my favorite Western...it incorporates all of the classic good verses evil, greedy big rancher verses the smaller rancher.... and Jack Palance made the best villain ever.

Finally what do you read for pleasure?

I’m pretty eclectic, I enjoy a good Western novel, I like good historical novels, and novels with a military theme.

Arrow and Saber #1

 OUSHATA MASSACRE

as by G.A. Carrington

Dell, 1989

Fort Reynolds, Colorado 1868. Fresh from West Point, Second Lieutenant Marcus Cavanaugh arrives with a platoon of recruits from the East into territory seething with Indian trouble. Two Eagles and his renegade band of Cheyenne warriors have broken the peace, raiding railroad crews and wagon trains, slaughtering men, women, and children, then disappearing into the hills.

Scouting for Two Eagles’ war party, Cavanaugh at last discovers their winter village, barely escaping with his life to report back to the fort. But nothing in his military training has prepared him for the savagery and danger he encounters as he leads his men against the hostile braves in the bloody battle known as the Oushata Massacre.

Like many first books in a series this one takes its time introducing the various characters that may return in the rest of the series – assuming they survive each book.

The author (in this case Robert Vaughan) takes care creating memorable characters, even though they aren’t that different from those in other books the reader may have read about in other U.S. Army tales.

The story itself isn’t very complicated, is a straightforward and easy read, filled with plenty of soldier verses Indian action.

Cavanaugh unwittingly becomes a hero early on, allowing Vaughan to explore some professional jealousy in the ranks of the army, which leads the commanding officer to desire similar hero recognition, and how this blind ambition nearly leads to the destruction of his complete command.

Entertaining and has me looking forward to reading the next in the series.