Mon 22 Oct 2018
A Western Review: PETER DAWSON – Dead Man Pass.
Posted by Steve under Reviews , Western Fiction[4] Comments
PETER DAWSON – Dead Man Pass. Dodd Mead, hardcover, November 1954. Bantam #1396, paperback, December 1955. Reprinted by Bantam several times. Serialized before book publication in The Saturday Evening Post from June 26 through August 7, 1954.
As is well known now, but perhaps not when his book was first published, western writer Peter Dawson was the pen name of Jonathan Glidden, who was the brother of Frederick Glidden, who also wrote westerns, but under the pen name of Luke Short. Between them they must have written a good percentage of the western fiction produced in the country in the 30s through the 60s.
And not all of it was about the usual cowboys and Indians, cattle drives, grasslands and gunfighters. In Dead Man Pass, Dawson changes the setting to mountain country, in the winter no less, in which the struggle to build a train tunnel through a mountain is the focus.
Stiffed on the price of his horses by the managing head of the company charged with completing the task, a young fellow named Bill Tenn decides to make an offer to owner of the company: to make the work go faster, bring an engine over the mountain through Dead Man Pass by a huge sled pulled by his horses.
The owner takes him up on it, but before he can begin, Tenn is convicted of a murder he didn’t commit. There are other complications, including a thwarted romance and a lode of silver that’s been found in the tunnel but being kept a secret.
There are plenty of plot lines to this well-constructed story, in other words, and it’s told in a comfortable and relaxed fashion. For me, though, there weren’t enough real twists to the tale, perhaps only one that I partially did not see coming. Maybe I’ve read too many westerns over the years for there to be many twists left!
October 23rd, 2018 at 12:45 am
Frank Gruber claimed that all western fiction could be listed under 7 basic plots. DEAD MAN PASS looks like it fits under two of Gruber’s plots: The Union Pacific story and the Empire story. The 7 plots are:
1–Union Pacific Story
2–Ranch Story
3–Empire Story
4–Revenge Story
5–Cavalry and Indian Story
6–Outlaw Story
7–Lawman Story
After reading hundreds of westerns my favorite type of plot is the Cavalry and Indian story. The American indian history is a tragic and fascination story and the cavalry life is full of interesting details, especially fighting indians in the hot desert under terrible conditions for $13 a month(a private’s pay).
October 23rd, 2018 at 6:04 am
If the Empire Story can be expanded to include gents who want to own all of a silver mine rather than all of the good grazing land in the area, then yes on #3.
DEAD MANN PASS is even more a Revenge Story, that of Bill Tenn who gets even (and more so) on the fellow with the tunnel project who cheated him on the price of the horses Tenn thought he was going to sell him.
October 23rd, 2018 at 5:10 pm
Dawson was always reliable, but Short’s Western fiction always seemed to me closely related to the hard-boiled school of mystery fiction even down to frequently noirish touches that certainly came through in some of the films of his work.
I’ve enjoyed most of the Dawson books I’ve read, but Short once in a while came close to Hammett territory in the lean hard clipped voice of some books.
October 23rd, 2018 at 6:22 pm
I think you’re right about the two brothers. As much as he seems to try to put a harder edge to this story, Dawson never quite manages to get it to take hold.