DEE HARKEY – Mean As Hell. University of New Mexico, hardcover, 1948. Signet, #856, paperback, 1951. Ancient City Press, trade paperback, 1989.

   I don’t have much to say about Dee Harkey’s Mean As Hell except that it deserves to be better known. Harkey’s account of his work as a Peace Officer in the old west, from the 1870s until 1911 is a work of interest, excitement and considerable charm.

   His naïve (in the best sense) style and easy narration of his life and times — from being besieged on the prairie as a child by “110 Indians” (I love that touch!) to the escape of a local badman by Flying Machine — lend a unique charm to his tales of rustlin’, shootin, fightin’ and all the assorted mayhem one reads a Western in search of.

   Find a copy of this somewhere and enjoy it!