Dead's Man Ranch

A Ralph Compton novel by Matthew P. Mayo. Published by Signet Books, 2012.

I'm not usually a fan of the plot that features a dude or greenhorn heading west and colliding with the earthy western customs, only to end up won over by the locals and having the “veneer of civilization” (in the words of Edgar Rice Burroughs) stripped away to leave something more straightforward and honest. But Matthew P. Mayo's considerable storytelling skills excellently overcome the obstacles inherent in this vintage plot, and he delivers a well-told, nicely paced, exciting novel that any western reader will find very satisfying. In Dead Man's Ranch, a stranger — Bryan — comes to town, but everyone recognizes him as the spitting image of his father, who died recently and left one of the finest ranches in the territory to this son, who was sent East to be raised by his mother's parents after she died. There are complications to Bryan's taking over the ranch, of course: he's an Eastern dandy and doesn't have a clue to his family's story (his grandfather, who raised the boy, had disinherited Bryan's mother when she married the rough-and-tumble western rancher, and subsequently kept Bryan in the dark about his beginnings as he raised the boy, even returning unopened any letters and gifts from Bryan's father when they came to the house); his dead father left behind the kindly Esperanza, unmarried, but with a grown bastard son, good-hearted Brandon, who has spent most of his time in a bottle since his father's death. There's also the owner of the neighboring ranch—also a widower—who wants Bryan's new property; his reckless, hot-headed, and frequently drunken son, who will perform any violent act necessary to get hold of the dead man's ranch to gain favor from his hard-nosed father; and the rancher's daughter, who frequently mediates between the two hot-headed men of her family. Throw in a psychopathic serial killer who has heard about the complicated mess about settling the dead man's property from a lawyer who was in his cups at a poker table (and who later ends up dead in an alley—guess who does him in?), and you've got all the ingredients for a western stew that is muy caliente.

Mayo weaves together all the tangled strands and pulls it off in fine fashion. He is a veteran western writer and historian of the West who has penned novels for Robert Hale's Black Horse Western imprint. (You can learn more about Black Horse Westerns at The Black Horse Extra blog.) It's a pleasure to see his work now made available to a wider mass-market audience. Mayo has recently released the first novel about his series character, Roamer, titled Wrong Town. It is available as a paperbound book or as an ebook for the Kindle. Readers who try Dead Man's Ranch will soon find themselves searching for his other books.

Buchanan's Seige

Thomas Buchanan, who runs The Pictorial Arts blog, occasionally posts a cover image featuring his western alter ego, Tom Buchanan, from the Buchanan series published by Fawcett/Gold Medal and written by a number of fine western writers, including William Ard, Brian Garfield, and others. This particular image was posted by Thomas recently for this post, "Under Seige." The Buchanan cover paintings are usually pretty good, and I really like this one. Identifying the artist's model is easy -- the ubiquitous Steve Holland -- but I'm not sure about the artist. There's something about the moment of captured action and the pose with its particular details that reminds me of Neal Adams' work. But the only book covers of which I'm aware that Adams did are the Tarzan covers for Ballantine Books. So, anybody know who this artist might be?

Jonah Hex: Classic Tales

The cover says Jonah Hex: Classic Tales, the spine says Jonah Hex: Welcome to Paradise. So take your pick. This collects 9 of the early Jonah Hex tales from Weird Western, published by DC Comics. Most of these appeared in the first volume of the big Showcase volume DC published a few years back, but they appear in color here. A nice sampling of scripters and artists: John Albano and Michael Fleisher for the former, Tony deZuniga, Doug Wildey, Noly Panaligan, George Moliterni, and the great Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez for the latter. Good, solid storytelling in the western comics tradition.

The Mustang Men

This is a nice, solid western by the always-dependable Ben Haas, under one of his pseudonyms. (Well, I've always found him dependable -- I don't think I've read any of his books yet that I've not enjoyed.)

The Mustang Men is an entry in Haas' Rancho Bravo series. It's the first of them I've read, and it was quite good.

My main point in the post is to share the cover. I think it's very evocative for a western cover painting. The impressionistic style reminds me greatly of Jeff Jones' work, but I don't find a tell-tale signature. Nor did I think he worked in the western genre, but I may be wrong.

Anyone know who did this cover painting?