Sat 31 Jul 2021
A Mystery Review by Barry Gardner: GREGORY BEAN – No Comfort in Victory.
Posted by Steve under Authors , Bibliographies, Lists & Checklists , Reviews[9] Comments
GREGORY BEAN – No Comfort in Victory. Harry Starbranch #1. St. Martin’s, hardcover, 1995; paperback, 1996.
Well, if one of your old standbys lets you down [referring to Sue Grafton’s “L” Is for Lawless, reviewed here], why not try a new character and a first novel? Bean was born and raised in Wyoming, currenty lives in New Jersey, and has been a newspaper reporter and editor for the last fifteen years. Excelsior …
Harry Starbranch is an ex-Denver cop, police chief of a small town in Wyoming, acting as County Sheriff out of Laramie and running for the office. A brutal rape and murder at a nearby ranch with the raper murdered there also sets off a chain of events that involves cattle rustling, vigilantism, and a number of other bloody deaths.
Well, this wasn’t bad. It was a little slow in spots, and I think the problem may have been that at 350 pages it was about 75 too long. Bean has a nice, easy prose style, and is good at both straight narrative and at describing the Wyoming countryside. His characters were well done, too, though a couple seemed a bit more unlikable than necessary.
Starbranch himself has potential, I think, and it will be interesting to see what Bean does with him. This isn’t the kind of maiden voyage that calls for predictions of stardom, but assuming that he improves as he goes along, I think Bean will do well.
The Harry Starbranch series —
1. No Comfort in Victory (1995)
2. Long Shadows in Victory (1996)
3. A Death in Victory (1997)
4. Grave Victory (1998)
July 31st, 2021 at 8:49 pm
A new author and series to me, probably. I’ll bet I bought all four in paperback, packed them away as I did so, and immediately forgot all about them.
As I read Barry’s review, I was, of course, reminded of Craig Johnson’s Longmire series, which began 5 or 6 years after Bean’s ended, as I’m sure you were, too.
July 31st, 2021 at 9:30 pm
It’s funny how an idea like this, moving the traditional mystery to a Western setting, starts and misses, then just the right writer at the right time comes along and suddenly the idea jells. A. B. Guthrie had the same idea a bit earlier and some success with it, and was certainly a superior writer, but it never spawned many imitators, and now it is one of the few genre’s where the tougher crime/action oriented books are thriving.
There are three or four books published around the same time of TRENT’S LAST CASE that could just have easily have triggered the Golden Age and certainly fed it.
Some ideas just hit for the right writer at the right time.
July 31st, 2021 at 10:55 pm
That’s what my wife’s doctoral dissertation was all about, only in mathematics. Ideas are constantly in the air, but as you say, only the right one at the right time ever gets recognized for it.
July 31st, 2021 at 9:31 pm
I loved this series when it came out, and was disappointed when it ended after only four books.
It has been years since I read them, but thought the characters were well done and enjoyed the setting.
I don’t think the author every wrote another book.
July 31st, 2021 at 10:59 pm
More than likely, Bean had a four book contract, and without a lot of publicity, sales went down with each one, and that was that.
But whenever I come across one now that I already own, I’ll remember it — and read it!
July 31st, 2021 at 11:03 pm
“Between 1978 and 1980, Gregory Bean was a reporter for Wyoming News before he rose through the ranks to become an associate editor. He then moved to Howard publications in Casper Wyoming and between 1980 and 1983 he was police reporter for the “Casper Star-Tribune†newspaper. Soon after, he was promoted to assistant city editor before becoming editor of “Wyoming Horizons†between 1983 and 1985. He never did stop his career wanderlust as he moved to Freeport Illinois in 1986 and was editor of the “Freeport Journal Standard†between 1985 and 1986. 1986 saw him move to Boston, Massachusetts, where he worked as an editor for Community Newspapers Co, North Shore Sunday, Seacoast Sunday, and Merrimack Valley Sunday. In 1993, he was made Greater Media Newspapers executive editor based in East Brunswick, New Jersey. During the period between 1979 and 1985, he was also a tutor at the University of Wyoming.”
August 1st, 2021 at 7:09 am
What’s weird is that I have no memory of reading Barry’s review and, equally, no memory of the series or the author.
August 1st, 2021 at 12:32 pm
Steve, you may be right about declining sales, not sure the last two books in the series were ever issued in paperback.
August 1st, 2021 at 7:49 pm
And I think you’re right about the last two not coming out in paperback. Not a good sign for any author not already well established.