Wed 9 Sep 2009
Archived Western Review: CAMERON JUDD – The Quest of Brady Kenton.
Posted by Steve under Reviews , Western Fiction[2] Comments
CAMERON JUDD – The Quest of Brady Kenton. St. Martin’s, paperback original; 1st printing, January 2001.
A clue from an ongoing serial in a dime novel series is enough to convince famed western reporter Brady Kenton that his wife, whom he always believed had died in a railroad accident years ago, somehow survived, and she may even still be alive.
Alex Gunnison, the son of Kenton’s publisher, is the man assigned to keep him on schedule and out of trouble, which is a full-time job on its own, even before a young woman claiming to be Kenton’s daughter appears. More? On her trail in turn is a former Texas Ranger and now, quite remarkably, one of the world’s first private eyes.
Intentionally or not, this novel reads like a dime novel itself, with lots of dialogue and action and precise, pinpoint characterizations of the varied westerners whose paths cross those of Kenton and Gunnison. Lots of humor, too, with a dark side that never manages to stay hidden. This particular phase of the chase ends in a wild-and-wooly shootout, but in true pulp fashion, there’s a strong hint of more adventures yet to come.
[UPDATE] 09-09-09. Or were there? Further adventures, that is — in the plural. There was at least one more, Kenton’s Challenge (St. Martin’s, November 2001), but whether or not that concluded Kenton’s hunt for his missing wife, I do not know.
I seem to recall that these two books came out around the time that the western lines at several paperback companies were canceled, with a few ongoing series left hanging. I don’t know if that happened here or not. If anyone can say, please email me or leave a comment below.
September 10th, 2009 at 4:54 am
“a former Texas Ranger and now, quite remarkably, one of the world’s first private eyes.”
I’m going to have to take you to task historically on this point (picky, picky picky), since this book seems to be set in the post Civil War era, a time when the profession of private eye was pretty common. Pinkertons was well established before the Civil War and had plenty of competition in the era after. My own great grandfather was a Texas Ranger who later worked for Pinkertons (as did scout Tom Horn and writer Andy Adams)as a detective.
Ironically the first offcial private eye was also the first official detective, Eugene Francois Vidocq, a good thirty or forty years before this, but even the Bow Street Runners sometimes operated as something very like a private eye, as did police in many European countries.
Private eyes helped bring down the James gang, caught Black Bart, and hounded Butch Cassidy and Sundance out of the country. So called range detectives were private eyes on horseback (and sometimes private executioners), and were often employed by railroads, banks, and other institutions. Many famous lawmen of the era worked part of the their careers as private eyes. It was not uncommon for Texas Rangers to take private assignments for well to do Texans. The Ranger in True Grit and Rooster Cogburn are both operating as private eyes.
We don’t tend to think of private eyes in the old west, but actually they were fairly common. You are close, but a good thirty years too late to be one of the “very first private eyes.” In the post Civil War west they were fairly common, they just didn’t wear trenchcoats and pork pies and call women ‘doll.’
September 10th, 2009 at 11:27 am
Points all well-taken, David. Particularly where you bring up Eugène François Vidocq, whom I never remember when it comes to making ill-chosen over-exaggerated statements like this one!