Wed 18 Feb 2015
A Western Fiction Review: WAYNE D. OVERHOLSER – Fabulous Gunman.
Posted by Steve under Reviews , Western Fiction[2] Comments
WAYNE D. OVERHOLSER – Fabulous Gunman. Macmillan, hardcover, 1952. Dell #729, paperback, 1953; reprinted by Dell several times. Also: Leisure, paperback, 1991; Leisure Double, paperback, bound with Steel to the South, 1994.
According to his Wikipedia page, Overholser wrote something close to a hundred western novels, under both his own name and several pseudonyms, including Lee Leighton, John S. Daniels, Dan J. Stevens and Joseph Wayne. His first novel was Buckaroo’s Code (1947), but well before then, he was a prolific writer for the westerns pulps, beginning with a story called “Wanted Man” (Popular Western, December 1936).
And even so, while I’m not sure, this may be the first of his work that I’ve ever read. I am sure it is the first in the last 30 years, which is entirely too bad, as I enjoyed this one quite a bit.
It occurred to me as I was reading it that it might even be considered a Private Eye novel, not quite, and certainty not in the traditional sense, but it comes close. Bill Womack is, in the traditional western sense, a gun for hire. Not a Paladin, by any means, for he’s quick on the gun and has killed many men with it, not caring who has hired him or the reason why.
But age and notoriety is catching up with him, and when he’s hired by twin siblings, Rose and Ed Hovey, to protect their father from the mess he’s in — a range war is about to begin, and Grant Hovey is right in the middle, a victim of his own weaknesses — Womack starts to ponder the meaning of the word justice, and whether or not a man can ever retire from the business of hiring out his guns to anyone who can pay the price.
As I say, a traditional western through and through, which also means a more than a little romance is involved as well. Not with the wife of the biggest rancher on the range, although Womack at first is attracted, but (as it turns out) the beautiful Nita Chapman has eyes for someone else.
It’s a long book with a complicated plot, and a lot of men don’t live to see the end of it. Overholser handles the varied strands of the story very well, all of an adult nature, and by adult I do not mean anything rated more than PG. A kiss at the end is all Womack has been working for.
February 19th, 2015 at 2:58 pm
I read a few Overholser titles and at least one Lee Leighton and enjoyed them all. As I mentioned in comments on my COMINC OF CASSIDY review there is a strong tie to the hardboiled novel and the private eye. Daly wrote a western set in Mexico right before he created Race Williams. No few writers like Bill Pronzini, Loren D, Estleman, W.T.Ballard, and James Reasoner do both extremely well.
Critics have long compared the private eye to cowboy heroes, and of course there were notable private eyes in the old west like Tom Horn, Andy Adams, LeForge (the one that dogs Newman and Redford in BUTCH CASSIDY …)… My great grandfather was both a Pinkerton and Range Detective at various times.
I’ve always found a streak of noir in Luke Short’s work and two of the films from it, BLOOD ON THE MOON and STATION WEST are often called Western noir.
Viewing this as not unlike a private eye novel is a canny way to read it. Whether that view of the West is accurate or not it is the way most modern readers think of the west thanks to the pulps, paperbacks, and television.
February 19th, 2015 at 6:38 pm
Of all the limited number of western story lines there are, the type that this one is is probably my favorite. I’m not interested in cavalry stories nor Indian fighting, and any that are rehashes of historical events cause my eyes to go blank. Pioneers in covered wagons bore me. I’ve read them over many times over and I’m done with them. No more Custer nor Billy the Kid for me, nor Jesse James either. Funny thing is, I can still watch them in movies and on TV. In fact, if I had any Wagon Train DVDs right at hand, I’d watch one tonight.
But FABULOUS GUNMAN is simply a crime fiction novel transplanted back in time to the West, with an story made all the more enjoyable because it was written by an author who knew how to write and could make his characters seem real to me, no matter how often I’ve read variations on this particular theme before.