Wed 1 Jan 2020
A Western Fiction Review by Dan Stumpf: BRETT McKINLEY – Just Plain Scum.
Posted by Steve under Reviews , Western Fiction[6] Comments
BRETT McKINLEY – Just Plain Scum. Cleveland Publishing Co., Australia, digest-sized paperback original, no date stated.
Okay, I just couldn’t resist a title like that. Even on a saddle stitched booklet of fewer than a hundred pages wrapped in an indifferent cover. Ultimately, I had to read it, and…
Well for what it is, Just Plan Scum ain’t bad. It ain’t good, mind you, but it recalled to me the Doc Savage books I enjoyed in Junior High, with characters as colorful and flat as the pages in a comic book, and a fast-moving, unlikely story told in plain, functional prose.
Scum starts well, with
“What?”
“There’s a feller here wants to fight you.”
“Why?”
“He reckons you’re flash.”
“He’s right.”
“He still wants to fight you.”
I like that. It promises imminent action and a bit of humor, and it could go anywhere from there.
Where it goes is to a band of free-booting veterans of the Civil War—Yanks and Rebs alike — known as The Company, guided by the loose but firm reins of Johnny Lee, a pulp hero in the best tradition: invincible, right-minded and colorfully costumed. He’s also surrounded by a few faithful lieutenants, each with a special trait that recalls the myrmidons of Doc Savage or the Shadow.
The story that follows serves them well: raiding Apaches, lovely women, brave soldiers, a double-dealing Officer, and action action action action. It left a cloying aftertaste, and the vague suspicion that too much of this would give me brain decay, but that was quickly rinsed by reading a real book.
And as I put Just Plain Scum on the shelf somewhere between Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye and Hud, it was with a sense of deep down pleasure that my library is big enough for all three.
January 1st, 2020 at 10:58 pm
Nothing wrong with a bit of good pulp.
January 2nd, 2020 at 2:28 am
Right. Pure pulp all the way, outback style,though these tales did take place in the American west. Aesthetically speaking, though, this one’s a rather incongruous fit between McCoy and McMurtry, wouldn’t you say?
January 2nd, 2020 at 8:14 am
Brett McKinley was really Paul Wheelahan, who wrote more than a thousand of these short Western novels.
January 2nd, 2020 at 4:39 pm
Thanks, James. It’s always good to know the name behind the name. I’ve had a few Australian westerns like this one over the years, but I’ve never taken the time to investigate them more thoroughly than look at the covers.
As it turns out, Wheelahan was first and maybe even better known for his work in Australian comic book, both writing and drawing. For a lot more information about him, here’s the link to his Wikipedia page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Wheelahan
January 2nd, 2020 at 8:17 am
Sounds like a page turner that carried you along at just the right. Evoking Doc Savage of days gone by is a nice touch, appealing to those of us old enough to remember that time.
January 2nd, 2020 at 8:46 am
Yeah Gary, but back when I was reading those pulp reprints, I wasn’t aware that Doc Savage had myrmidons.Somehow, relating them to Achilles’ troops adds to the sense of cheap mythos