CLIFF FARRELL – Owlhoot Trail. Doubleday, hardcover, 1971. Signet T5207; 1st printing, October 1972. Zebra, paperback, 1990.

   I almost never read westerns for the history that’s behind them, but once in a while I slip up. This story takes place in the days just before the Oklahoma land rush of 1889, and surprisingly to me, this background helps juice up the whole book quite a bit.

   Vince Barrett is a con-man and a gambler, and he has no interest in land. What does attract his attention, though, is $80,000 in stolen Wells Fargo money, hidden somewhere on the other side of the starting line. With three vicious outlaw brothers determined to get their hands back on it, however, not to mention a large contingent of lawmen in the area as well, he decides to leave it lay — that is, until a girl and her father also get involved.

   Thus begins what promises to be a better than average western tale, but there are just too many secrets involved, and worse, the ending is a minor disappointment, at least in comparison to what came before.

— Reprinted from Nothing Accompliced #4, November 1993 (slightly revised).

Bibliographic Notes:   Cliff Farrell (1899-1977) was the author of hundreds of stories for the pulp magazines, beginning in 1926. His first novel was Follow the New Grass, published in 1954, the first of nearly 30 before his death.