Alfred Hitchcock Anthologies

                                                      The Alfred Hitchcock anthologies


     There were celebrity film directors before Alfred Hitchcock, but none quite captured the popular imagination-- especially in America-- as much as this portly, droll Brit. After a successful career in his native England, Hitchcock made the transition to the States, where his reputation sky-rocketed, and his name came to be closely linked to tales of suspense, murder, and intrigue.

     Little wonder then that book publishers would seek his input-- or at least seek to appropriate his name and image-- for anthologies of suspense stories.

     Hitchcock was happy to accommodate them, apparently, because during a short period in the late '40's and another, much longer period beginning in the late '50's and lasting decades, the Hitchcock anthologies became a virtual cottage industry.

     The first anthology Hitchcock was reputedly involved in was a collection of novels by Eric Ambler called Intrigue (as an Ambler fan, I actually own this volume, from long before I developed an interest in the Hitchcock anthologies). The introduction is credited to him, and if he indeed wrote it, it's very likely the only time he ever did so. The first general anthology release was The Pocketbook of Great Detectives, in 1941, from Pocket Books. I’m not sure how much Hitchcock was actually involved in it (probably not much). I'm not counting it for our purposes here regardless, as it was a much more specialized volume and not in keeping with the format established after that, although the stories included in it are by some very well-regarded detective story writers and it's probably worth reading.
   
     In truth, Hitchcock himself had little or nothing to do with the any of the volumes over the years. He didn't select the stories, he didn't edit them, he didn't even write the introductions attributed to him. Most of that work, at least in the early period, was done by writer Robert Arthur. Hitchcock merely lent his name and image. And that was plenty to sell books.

     Arthur did an amazing job. His taste in stories was diverse, and his ability to select just the right tales to compliment each other in each volume was quite expert. He also did a pitch-perfect impression of Hitchcock in the wry, self-effacing introductions he wrote. Arthur’s stories would even pop up in the anthologies from time to time, and he would eventually create the "Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators" series of books for younger readers.

     Many of the later volumes here were edited by Eleanor Sullivan or Cathleen Jordan, long-time editors at Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine—they also had very good eyes for solid stories, although somewhat more oriented toward mystery as opposed to suspense in general as they moved into the 80’s.

     The publishing format changed dramatically around 1980, eventually losing the remarkable cover designs, the artifice of being selected and introduced by Hitchcock himself, and yes, even the (admittedly often cringe-worthy) titles. You may notice on this list that even by the late ‘70’s, the presentation and image of the books had begun to change, gradually going exclusively to hardcover.

     All of the hardcover releases (save the first two) were published by Random House until 1979, and the paperbacks by Dell. For me, the Dell paperbacks with the goofy titles and stylish, sometimes garish covers hold a great deal of appeal as a collector. Don't misunderstand, however. The covers and titles would mean nothing if the short stories collected in them weren't consistently entertaining. And they are entertaining indeed. The earliest volumes feature stories from a very wide range of sources, and often contain classic short stories by the likes of Brett Harte, Ambrose Bierce, and even H.G. Wells. As they went on, more and more stories from Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine were used until eventually AHMM became more or less the sole source. Some of the greatest suspense writers of their times were featured fairly regularly: Robert Bloch, Henry Slesar, Donald Honig, Jack Ritchie, C.B. Gilford, Hal Ellson, Fredric Brown, Donald Westlake, Lawrence Block, and the great Fletcher Flora, to name just a few.

     I researched this list primarily to help myself as a collector sort it all out, as the publication history was pretty convoluted, but if it winds up being useful to anyone else, well, it will have been worth the time. There was a bit of online detective work involved, but I had a solid starting point: I owe a great debt to my friend Todd Mason for his knowledge and insight on the subject, the Hitchcock Zone, and especially the website Casual Debris in putting this together. My goal was to make it as simple and easy to understand as possible, but if you’re looking for more details about these anthologies, I recommend those sites.

     Comments, criticisms, and corrections are more than welcome.



The Dell Paperback anthologies

Dell was the sole paperback publisher of Hitchcock anthologies in the US from the beginning to the end. Several of the titles were reprinted over the years with new covers; I’m not going to go into all the reprint history, unless a book was reprinted with a different title or there is some otherwise notable detail.


*Suspense Stories: Collected by Alfred Hitchcock (1945)
     (reprinted with one story replacement in 1964 as 14 Suspense Stories to Play Russian Roulette By)
*Bar the Doors! (1946)
     (Reprinted in 1962 under the same title, except without the “!”)
*Hold Your Breath (1947)
*Fear and Trembling (1948)
*Suspense Stories Selected by Alfred Hitchcock: Thirteen Tales of Tension (1949)
     (Reprinted in 1963 as A Baker’s Dozen of Suspense Stories. Not to be confused with
      Suspense Stories: Collected by Alfred Hitchcock, from 1945, despite the nearly identical title.)


There were no more Hitchcock anthologies after that for ten years until the "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" television show began in 1955. It was a hit show, and a couple years later they began marketing anthologies again to capitalize on the program's success.

Note: In 1961, A Bouquet of Clean Crimes and Neat Murders was released. I mention it because it’s sort of the odd man out here. First, it was the only single author collection released under the Hitchcock banner, devoted exclusively to the stories of frequent AHMM contributor Henry Slesar. Second, it wasn’t published by Dell, but by Avon Books. Despite the fact that it doesn’t quite fit into this list for those reasons, I highly recommend it. Slesar was a terrific writer.


*12 Stories They Wouldn't Let Me Do on TV (1958)
     (Reprints part of Stories They Wouldn't Let Me Do on TV hardcover)
*13 More They Wouldn't Let Me Do on TV (1959)
     (Reprints rest of Stories They Wouldn't Let Me Do on TV hardcover)
*14 of My Favorites in Suspense (1960)
     (Reprints first part of My Favorites in Suspense hardcover)
*More of My Favorites in Suspense (1961)
     (Reprints remainder of My Favorites in Suspense hardcover)
*12 Stories for Late at Night (1962)
     (Reprints first part of Stories for Late at Night hardcover)
*More Stories for Late at Night (1962)
     (Reprints remainder of Stories for Late at Night hardcover. Reprinted in 1977 as Skeleton Crew)
*Bar the Doors (1962)
     (Reprint of 1946 title of same name, only dropping the “!”)
*A Hangman's Dozen (1962)
*16 Skeletons from My Closet (1963)
*A Baker’s Dozen of Suspense Stories (1963)
     (Reprints Suspense Stories Selected by Alfred Hitchcock, from 1949)
*14 Suspense Stories to Play Russian Roulette By (1964)
     (Reprints Suspense Stories: Collected by Alfred Hitchcock, 1945, except the replacement of
      “Leiningen Versus the Ants” by Carl Stephenson with “Never Kill for Love” by C.B.Gilford)
*Once Upon a Dreadful Time (1964)
*Stories My Mother Never Told Me (1965)
     (Reprints first part of Stories My Mother Never Told Me hardcover)
*Witches' Brew (1965)
     (Not to be confused with Witch’s Brew, 1977 hardcover release*note the different spelling of
      “Witches'”)
*Anti-Social Register (1965)
*More Stories My Mother Never Told Me (1965)
     (Reprints remainder of Stories My Mother Never Told Me hardcover)
*Stories Not for the Nervous (1966)
     (Reprints first part of Stories Not for the Nervous hardcover)
*Noose Report (1966)
*More Stories Not for the Nervous (1967)
     (Reprints remainder of Stories Not for the Nervous hardcover)
*A Hard Day at the Scaffold (1967)
*Coffin Corner (1968)
*Games Killers Play (1968)
*Skull Session (1968)
*Death Bag (1969)
*Happiness is a Warm Corpse (1969)
*Murders I Fell in Love With (1969)
*Murders on the Half-Skull (1970)
*Get Me to the Wake on Time (1970)
*Scream Along with Me (1970
*This One Will Kill You (1971)
*Slay Ride (1971)
*I Am Curious (Bloody) (1971)
*Down by the Old Bloodstream (1971)
*Rolling Gravestones (1971)
*Dates with Death (1972)
     (Reprints A Month of Mystery hardcover)
*Terror Time (1972)
*Death Can Be Beautiful (1972)
*Happy Deathday! (1972)
*A Hearse of a Different Color (1972)
*The Best of Fiends (1972)
*Death-Mate (1973)
*Let It All Bleed Out (1973)
*Stories to Stay Awake By (1973)
     (Reprints first part of Stories to Stay Awake By hardcover)
*More Stories to Stay Awake By (1973)
     (Reprints remainder of Stories to Stay Awake By hardcover)
*Boys and Ghouls Together (1974)
*Coffin Break (1974)
*Bleeding Hearts (1974)
*Behind the Death Ball (1974)
*Grave Business (1975)
*Murderer's Row (1975)
*Murder Racquet (1975)
*Speak of the Devil (1975)
*Stories to Be Read with the Lights On, Volume One (1976)
     (Reprints first part of hardcover of Stories to Be Read with the Lights On hardcover)
*Stories to Be Read with the Lights On, Volume Two (1976)
     (Reprints remainder of Stories to Be Read with the Lights On hardcover)
*Don't Look a Gift Shark in the Mouth (1976)
     (Reprints 14 of My Favorites in Suspense from 1960)
*I Want My Mummy (1977)
*Stories to Be Read with the Door Locked, Volume 1 (1977)
     (Reprints first part of Stories to be Read with the Door Locked hardcover)
*Stories to Be Read with the Door Locked, Volume 2 (1977)
     (Reprints remainder of Stories to Be Read with the Door Locked hardcover)
*Skeleton Crew (1977)
     (Reprint of More Stories for Late at Night, from 1961)
*Having a Wonderful Crime (1977)
*Murder-Go-Round (1978)
*Killers at Large (1978)
*Breaking the Scream Barrier (1979)
     (Reprint of paperback Stories to Be Read with the Lights On, Vol 2, from 1976, inexplicably)
*Death on Arrival (1979)
*Alive and Screaming (1980)
     (Final Dell paperback)




Hardcover anthologies

**Fireside Book of Suspense Stories (1947)
     (From Simon & Schuster. The introduction and some of the stories originally appeared in 1945’s
      paperback Suspense Stories: Collected by Alfred Hitchcock)
**Stories They Wouldn't Let Me Do on TV (1957)
     (Second and last release from Simon & Schuster)
**My Favorites in Suspense (1959)
     (first release from Random House, which would remain the hardcover publisher for the next 20 years)
**Stories for Late at Night (1961)
**Haunted Houseful (1961)
     (for “young readers”)
**Ghostly Gallery (1962)
     (for “young readers”)
**Stories My Mother Never Told Me (1963)
**Monster Museum (1965)
     (for “young readers”)
**Stories Not for the Nervous (1965)
**Sinister Spies (1966)
     (for “young readers”)
**Stories That Scared Even Me (1967)
**Spellbinders in Suspense (1967)
     (for “young readers”)
**A Month of Mystery (1969)
**Daring Detectives (1969)
     (for “young readers”)
**Stories to Stay Awake By (1971)
**Stories to Be Read with the Lights On (1973)
**Supernatural Tales of Terror and Suspense (1973)
**Stories to Be Read with the Door Locked (1975)
**Witch's Brew (1977)
     (not to be confused with Witches' Brew from 1965*note the different spelling of “Witch’s”)
**Stories That Go Bump in the Night (1977)
**The Master's Choice (1979)
     (Final hardcover release from Random House)
**The Best of Mystery (1980)
     (Hardcover release from Galahad Books, edited by Harold Q. Masur)


The 1980s saw the Hitchcock anthologies go exclusively to hardcover releases, published in the US by Davis Publications, which had acquired Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine in 1975. Beginning in ’76, with “Tales to Keep You Spellbound”, Davis published a total of 27 hardcovers collecting the best stories from that magazine. They overlapped with the final few Random House publications. The quality of the stories remained high, but it was the end of an era of remarkable packaging. In 1989, the Davis Publications hardcovers ceased; the final three anthologies listed here, in the early ‘90s, were all published by different houses.

Following are the Davis Publications hardcover releases, edited by Eleanor Sullivan or Cathleen Jordan (listed here separately for the sake of clarity):

**Tales to Keep You Spellbound (1976)
**Tales to Take Your Breath Away (1977)
**Tales to Make Your Blood Run Cold (1978)
**Tales to Scare You Stiff (1978)
**Tales to Send Chills Down Your Spine (1979)
**Tales to Be Read with Caution (1979)
**Tales to Fill You with Fear and Trembling (1980)
**Tales to Make Your Teeth Chatter (1980)
**Tales to Make Your Hair Stand on End (1981)
**Tales to Make You Weak in the Knees (1981)
**Tales to Make You Quake & Quiver (1982)
**Your Share of Fear (1982)
**Death-Reach (1982)
**Fatal Attractions (1983)
**Borrowers of the Night (1983)
**A Choice of Evils (1983)
**Mortal Errors (1984)
**Crime Watch (1984)
**Grave Suspicions (1984)
**No Harm Undone (1985)
**Words of Prey (1986)
**A Mystery by the Tail (1986)
**A Brief Darkness (1987)
**The Shadow of Silence (1987)
**Most Wanted: First Lineup (1988)
**Shrouds and Pockets (1988)
**Murder & Other Mishaps (1989)

At the end of the ‘80s, Davis Publications stopped releasing the Hitchcock anthologies. The final three hardcover anthologies, released in the early 1990s, were published by other publishing houses. They were:

**Home Sweet Homicide
     (1991, Walker & Co Publishers)
**Tales of the Supernatural and the Fantastic
     (1993, Smithmark Publishers)
**Fun and Games at the Whacks Museum and Other Horror Stories
     (1994, Simon & Schuster, a collection of stories from AHMM and its sister publication Ellery Queen
      Mystery Magazine)





Following are releases from UK publishers, paperbacks unless otherwise noted. Most of these are reprints of the American editions, but the few that are “original” are marked as such in bold font. Pan Books was the primary publisher in the UK, with Four Square in 1966, ’67, and ‘68 putting out seven originals. As far as I’ve been able to determine, these original titles were edited by Peter Haining:

**My Favourites in Suspense- Part One (1962)
     (Hardcover reprint of first part of American edition. It appears a Part Two was never published)
*My Favourites in Suspense- Part One (1963)
     (Paperback reprint of first part of American edition. It appears a Part Two was never published)
*Stories for Late at Night- Part 1 (1964)
     (Reprint of first part of American hardcover edition, in paperback)
*Stories for Late at Night- Part 2 (1965)
     (Reprint of second part of American hardcover edition, in paperback)
*Haunted Houseful (1965)
     (Hardcover reprint of American edition)
**Ghostly Gallery (1966)
     (Hardcover reprint of American edition)
*Guaranteed Rest In Peace (1966)
     (Four Square Publishing, original paperback release)
*Ghostly Gallery (1966)
     (Paperback reprint of hardcover published earlier that year)
*This Day’s Evil (1967)
     (Four Square Publishing, original paperback release)
*Behind the Locked Door (1967)
     (Four Square Publishing, original paperback release)
*Meet Death at Night (1967)
     (Four Square Publishing, original paperback release)
*Anyone for Murder? (1967)
     (Four Square Publishing, original paperback release)
*The Late Unlamented (1967)
     (Four Square Publishing, original paperback release)
**Stories That Scared Even Me (1968)
     (Hardcover, reprint of American edition)
*Stories Not for the Nervous- Book One (1968)
     (Reprint of first part of American hardcover edition, in paperback)
*The Graveyard Man (1968)
     (Four Square Publishing, original paperback release)
*Stories Not for the Nervous- Book Two (1969)
     (Reprint of second part of American hardcover edition, in paperback
*This One Will Kill You (1972)
     (Reprint of American Dell edition)
*A Month of Mystery- Book One (1972)
     (Reprint of first part of American hardcover edition, in paperback. It appears a Book Two was never
      published)
*Get Me to the Wake on Time (1974)
     (Reprints American Dell edition)
*Stories to Stay Awake By- Part One (1974)
     (Reprint of first part of American hardcover edition, in paperback)
*Stories to Stay Awake By- Part Two (1975)
     (Reprint of second part of American hardcover edition, in paperback)
*Grave Business (1977)
     (Reprints American Dell edition)
*Witch’s Brew (1977)
     (Reprints American Dell edition)
**Witch’s Brew (1978)
     (Hardcover version of paperback from previous year)

Speaking of movies...

... I could be wrong, but I think my generation may have been the last one to have any deep appreciation of films that came before we were born. That's not meant as a disparaging remark about younger people; it's just that the options for discovery aren't there anymore. You can't really thumb through the channels and just stumble across some old black & white flick now. Yeah, there's TCM, and probably a couple of others, but that's it. And the thrill of "accidental discovery" is long gone. Quite literally hundreds of channels to choose from, and still so little in the way of old movies.


I grew up in the '70's, before the dawn of cable, and we had four or five channels to choose from. And I was a fairly obsessive television watcher. Cartoons, of course, and cop shows and syndicated sit-coms. But it was MOVIES that always gave me a thrill, movies usually made long before I was born, that gave me weird, tantalizing peeks into exotic and mysterious worlds.


In the Detroit area, the 4 O'CLOCK MOVE happened every weekday, coinciding perfectly between the time you finished your homework and the time dinner was ready. They would often have "theme weeks"-- "Elvis Week" was always something to look forward to, and "Godzilla Movie Week" was extra-special.


In the summer time, or on those days you stayed home from school, there was BILL KENNEDY AT THE MOVIES. Bill Kennedy was a bit player in Hollywood back in the day, and mostly showed classic flicks from the '40's and '50's. It was through his show I had my first glimpse of actors like Bogart, Mitchum, Jane Russell, Spencer Tracy, Cary Grant, Katherine Hepburn, etc, etc.



Black & white. Loved it.


Saturday afternoons: SIR GRAVES GHASTLY. A cheesy horror movie host in the grand tradition, Sir Graves showed me the old Hammer Horror-- Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing-- as well as Roger Corman's Edgar Allen Poe adaptations, all in glorious blood red color.


If you forced yourself to get up early on Sunday morning, your day would start at 8 with an Abbot & Costello movie. Then some shorts, like Laurel & Hardy or Our Gang. After that, Tarzan would usually swing in, although sometimes it would be Shirley Temple instead (always a massive disappointment to me at the time) or a Blondie & Dagwood movie with Penny Singleton and Arthur Lake. I liked those, but mostly because I had a crush on Penny Singleton. If you were really lucky, you'd catch a Thin Man movie, because Myrna Loy was even more alluring than Penny.


Sunday afternoon was CHILLER THEATER time. The credits started with that creepy interlude from the Led Zepplin song "Whole Lotta Love" (I wonder if they had permission to do that?) and showed a lot of horror/sci-fi from the '40's and '50's, movies about giant ants and flying saucers, as well as the Universal Studios monster movies.


And in the evenings, there would almost always be a movie showing at some point, usually a drama or period piece. Late nights, if you managed to stay up, would be poorly-preserved flickering black & white images of places and things that seemed so alien-- men with guns and fedoras and dangerous slinky females and big black cars and rain and street lamps and one-room apartments-- that they were like artifacts from ancient times. Film Noir, although at the time I had no way of knowing that.


****

In my teens and early 20s, I developed a special affection for horror films, old and new, and was more than a little obsessive; I'd even venture to say there isn't a horror film made before around 1987 I haven't seen. But eventually I outpaced that hang up, fell in love with the aforementioned film noir, transferred my obsession to that.

In my late 20s, I discovered Buster Keaton and fell in love. Buster is STILL my go-to when I'm feeling depressed. His films always cheer me up.

In my 30s, I discovered the joys of foreign films. The Japanese stuff, like Kurosawa, of course, but also the great Italian neo-realists like Fellini and Antonioni. The French as well, especially Jean Renoir. The great stuff from the Golden Age of British crime movies, in the late 60s and early 70s. Not long after that, I became obsessed with westerns and WWII movies.I would never have thought twice about any of that if I hadn't developed a deep love of film from an really early age.

The jist of all this is, because our young brains were exposed to all this great cinematic art, we developed a specific set of references that went far beyond our own experience and our own lifetimes. When I talk to someone now in their teens or twenties, and they have no idea who Buster Keaton is, or the Marx Brothers or William Powell or Vincent Price or Greta Garbo, it makes me a little sad. It's not their fault; they missed out. They missed it all. So many viewing choices now, and yet the options have never been fewer.

I know there are plenty of young people out there now who have a deep appreciation of old movies, and again I want to stress that I'm not being dismissive of newer generations. But they're sort of a specialized little group, removed from the mainstream. But when I was coming of age, this sort of thing was probably a bit more of a given. It was just always there.


I think I was really lucky to just catch them, those last few years before it got late and the station played the National Anthem and signed off.

Look up here, I'm in Heaven. Goodbye, David Bowie.

In the early 80s, MTV didn’t have a whole lot of videos in their catalogue, so if you had that station on for more than say six hours, you’d wind up seeing the same stuff over and over again. That’s really how I first came to be aware of David Bowie.

I mean, I knew who he was before that, sure. His early stuff was a staple of Detroit radio. You’d hear Ziggy Stardust all the time, and Rebel, Rebel, and Panic in Detroit. I liked all that stuff. But I wasn’t really… attached to it.

The David Bowie I saw on MTV, though… it was a different artist. One that really got right into my guts.

I still remember the first time I saw a Bowie video, and man, that’s saying something, considering the shit quality of my memory in general.  It was Fashion, from the 1980 album Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps), and I remember my brain going on the fritz for the duration of that song, my eyes glued to the TV, my stomach doing some weird fluttery shit I didn’t understand at the time.

The song, of course, was amazing, but it was more than that. It was this guy, this Bowie. He was so… odd. And so fascinating. He was beautiful. I’m as heterosexual as they come, honestly, but there was more than a little bit of a sexual response. In later years, it would become kind of a joke: would you have sex with a man? Naw, I don’t think so… unless it was David Bowie, har har har.

But he and his music came into my life at a sort of key juncture, a moment when I was changing into a young adult, on the verge of discovering who I really was. I was a weirdo and an outcast, a freak with a weird eye and zero confidence.

But here was this Bowie guy…he ALSO had a weird eye. But confidence? Damn. An IMMEASURABLE amount. He was clearly weird, and he clearly didn’t give a shit what you thought about that.

This was the same year I discovered punk rock, via my friend Lana, and all of this period of discovery that happened so fast and so intensely shaped who I would be for the rest of my life. I learned to embrace my outcast status and weirdness and it is no exaggeration to say it was because of David Bowie.

When a Bowie video would come on MTV, it didn’t matter what I was doing, everything came to a halt and I was completely committed to it. They played Fashion a lot, but also Ashes to Ashes, Look Back in Anger, I am a DJ, Heroes… he was one of only a few artists with an extensive video backlog, and so appeared frequently.

As I embraced the post-punk lifestyle with more and more enthusiasm, I bought my first Bowie album: Scary Monsters. It’s still probably my favorite. But eventually I possessed his entire discography, and realized that it was his late 70s stuff that really spoke to me. Beginning with Station to Station, then into his Berlin period, and ending with Scary Monsters. This was experimental, vital music from an artist at the top of his game, so moody and so smart, and so committed to a really singular artistic vision. Even at that young age, I recognized what David Bowie was—he was an artist with real integrity, a freak who didn’t care that he was a freak, and who had somehow made the world love him and embrace him for it.

I can’t even begin to tell you how inspirational that was to a young man like me, who wanted to hold on to who he was but who still desired love and acceptance.

And guess what? I followed Bowie’s example. And it worked. My late teen years, I was a different person. I embraced who I really was, I didn’t care anymore what anyone else thought, and because of it I gained friends…. And yes, girls. Mostly other weirdos, but you know… confident weirdos hold a great deal of appeal for the “normals” as well.

In that regard, David Bowie shaped who I would be for the rest of my life. More than any other artist.

In the late 80s, I spent a lot of time in Detroit’s various post-punk nightclubs and bars, doing my best to look and act like David Bowie. I experimented a bit with bi-sexuality, because I wanted to be open to new experiences… like Bowie.

Girls liked my weird eye. I heard many times: “Your eyes are beautiful…. Like David Bowie….”

And he would continue to be there, forever after.

When the album Let’s Dance came out, Bowie’s very deliberate (and highly successful!) attempt to reinvent himself as a pop star, I was on board. I knew what he was doing, as did most of his hardcore fans. He was playing yet another role. And even if we turned our noses up at radio friendly pop, we gave Bowie a pass, because it felt like an infiltration of the mainstream, an art spy in the ranks of our enemy. And besides, it was fucking GOOD pop music.

He masqueraded as a pop star for the bulk of the 80s, with varying results depending on the album, but by the 90s he had shrugged that persona off as being too artistically unfulfilling, and moved on to riskier sounds again. He probably outstayed the pop star thing, but I was all too willing to forgive him that.

In the years since, I’ve always been excited at the prospect of a new Bowie release. His personal re-inventions weren’t as extreme or easy to categorize in the 90s and 00s, but I’m sure that was deliberate. After playing so many roles in his lifetime, I’m sure he was happy to just express himself more directly, without couching it in a character.

I loaded up his last album, Blackstar, the day it came out. I didn’t listen to it that day, because I wanted to wait until I had the time to just sit and do nothing but listen, without distraction.

He died two days later.

I made the time.

Blackstar, if you haven’t heard it yet, is… it’s haunting. It’s beautiful and mournful and even a little playful. It’s the best work he’s done since Scary Monsters, in my opinion. Is that assessment colored by the melancholy of his death? It’s possible. But so what. 

I’ve listened to Blackstar four times now. In-between, I’ve been listening to older stuff, all my favorite Bowie tracks. I suspect I will be doing that for many days to come.

I cried when I heard the news that he had died. I have never in my entire life shed tears for the death of a famous person. But David Bowie was different. He was my role model, and my hero. I would not be the person I am today if Bowie had not come into my life.

Dark Corners V. 1, issue 4, and Gideon Miles by Ron Scheer

Dark Corners, if you don't already know, is the creation of my friends Craig and Emily McNeely, a quarterly digest of pulp-style fiction ranging from noir to westerns to sci-fi and everything in between. The new issue is out, and I have a lovely story of domestic bliss in it called "The Good Step-Dad". But don't let that throw you. There are also tales from Ed Kurtz, Will Viharo, Warren Moore, Ryan Sayles, William Wallace, Steve W. Lauden, and more.

One of the highlights is a McNeely-penned tribute to our recently departed friend, the great Ron Scheer, which gives me the perfect opportunity to mention his upcoming book from Beat to a Pulp, MILES TO LOST DOG CREEK. I wanted to mention it because it's a Gideon Miles story. Yep. One of the last things Ron worked on was a tale of our favorite black U.S. Marshall. It's coming soon, so keep your eyes open.

In the meantime, be sure to pick up the new Dark Corners. It's available on Kindle and in paper.

Loving some bad reviews

I don't know, honestly, how much impact reviews have on book sales. But I still like getting them, on Amazon or Goodreads, or personal blogs. A good review always serves as a little ego boost that might make you feel good about what you do for a few minutes or a few hours, depending.

Bad reviews, though they serve no real purpose and I am generally unaffected by them, are sometimes entertaining as well. Once in a while, someone who leaves a bad review will actually make some valid points, but the majority of them are just kinda... well, they are what they are. 

Here's a little collection of  one-and-two-star reviews of my work on Amazon. This is not me railing against bad reviews, I promise; I have enough of an ego that they don't really bother me too much. But if you're a writer disturbed by readers who hate what you do, maybe this will serve as a reminder that ALL of us get 'em, and let's be honest: if everyone enjoyed what you do, odds are you'd be doing something wrong. 

Enjoy!

DIG TEN GRAVES-- "Not thrilling or scary, or even remotely shocking.--  I got this book for free for my Kindle, and glad for it. The book seems to be written by a college student going for his English degree."

"I was left with the impression that the author could benefit from counselling."

MILES TO LITTLE RIDGE-- "Not enjoyable.-- the language in this book was offensive and unnecessary for me. often the reviews mention this but I missed it if any did. I didn't compete the book."

"Meh.-- He writes well but he doesn't know his Western history. Get a fact-checker, Lowrance; it would be worth the money."

THE BASTARD HAND-- "Dreadfully dull. Don't waste your time."

"A disappointment. All the characters seem to have an ulterior motive... and none good."

"Yuck!"

"I'm used to more quality literature. But you can try."

CITY OF HERETICS-- "Read till the end but felt. Bit let down. Ok if there was very little else to read, but not the best I have read."

Noir at the Bar Chicago

I've wanted to make one of these Noir at the Bar events for a long time now, but circumstances haven't permitted until now. I'll be at this one, reading, signing, drinking, etc, along with some of my favorite indie writers: Jedidiah Ayres, Libby Fischer Hellmann, Jake Hinkson, Kent Gowran, and Dan O'Shea.

If you're in or around Chicago on the 30th, swing by. It should be fun.

Reading from The Bastard Hand

Last Saturday in Grand Rapids, writer Chris DeWildt had a reading/signing for his new novel, LOVE YOU TO A PULP, and he was kind enough to ask me to be a guest reader. I was happy to oblige. Our friend Mary Alles recorded both of us on her phone. If you're interested, here's me talking a bit about my definition of "noir", and reading the first scene from THE BASTARD HAND.

Gideon Miles returns in Edward A. Grainger's Helltown Shootout

Edward A. Grainger (aka David Cranmer),the creator of Western outlaw heroes Cash Laramie and Gideon Miles, has returned with a blistering action story featuring Gideon, "Helltown Shootout". Readers of this blog know I have a special place in my heart for Gideon, having penned two of his adventures so far, so having the character's creator come roaring back with a new adventure is an event. 

Naturally, Grainger's take on the Marshall is spot on, and every bit as rounded and fully-realized as any hero in a Western story has ever been, and reminds me once again why I was so attracted to Gideon in the first place. This one, "Helltown Shootout", finds the level-headed and pragmatic lawman up against overwhelming odds as he takes on an entire gang of outlaws in a thrilling cat-and-mouse series of violent encounters. Allies are scarce in Helltown, and Gideon Miles finds himself pretty much on his own, relying only on his quick wit, blazing Colt, and trusty spring-loaded wrist blade. In the epilogue, Grainger gives us some nice insight into Gideon's processes, and the things that inspire him as one of the first black U.S. Marshall's in the Wyoming Territory. 

This is the 10th volume of the Cash Laramie/Gideon Miles series, following three collections of stories, and a handful of short novels by Grainger, Wayne D. Dundee, Nik Morton, and myself. Highly recommended for fans of fast-paced action yarns.

When Everybody Dies

What would we do, then, if we woke up Thursday morning to find that, overnight, 80% of the world’s population had died in their sleep? Would we/should we mourn? Let’s say, oh, nobody you loved croaked. Just some people somewhere else. If you live in the city, turns out all those folks out in the country died. Or if you’re rural, well… only city dwellers are gone now. All of them, save for a scattering of lost and confused individuals, probably wandering around those suddenly still streets with dumb and vacant looks on their faces. They lost loved ones, you didn’t, and so you watch on the news, in awe over your coffee but untouched, you watch those cheeks streaked with tears.

What if they didn’t die peacefully? What if it was agonizing? Would it touch us any deeper?

Those lost souls, they would have died writhing in pain, blood pouring from their ears and noses and mouths. They’d be found in the morning twisted into ungodly shapes, like those mummified victims in Pompeii.

What if it DID affect us, oh so slightly, in that we lost cousins or distant aunts. We could tell our story of heartbreak at work that day. “Yeah, it’s crazy. I tried to call cousin Jim all morning, but the news guy said just about everyone in Port Huron is gone. Sad. I’m gonna miss him.”

You won’t miss him.

80%, gone. All over the world.

Hell, there probably wouldn’t BE any news about it. All the media outlets would dry up, because the suits and hairstyles that operate them would be gone. Statistically, every member of Congress would be dead too. The president as well. Every world leader, except maybe a couple, but they would be powerless because all the lackeys that enforce their wills would be twisted in death.

What if it DID take your loved ones? Your husband. Your kids. Your mom. What if you had to watch them scream and howl themselves into blackness, their faces contorted and blood-streaked.

You might wish you were amongst the dead. You might kill yourself, not able to face this new, silent world. Who could blame you?

All the fears that have driven you your entire life would become hollow things with no meaning then.

And the worst part, the very worst part, is that somewhere in the farthest regions of the darkest corners of the back of your brain, you would KNOW this had to happen. It couldn’t end any other way. And the planet will carry on without our teeming, swarming masses, it would thrive, really. It would do better than EVER.

Until, a few thousand years from now, we humans make a comeback, maybe, we populate ourselves right to the precipice again, we eat up every resource available to us, we place an almost holy sanctity on the value of our own lives.

And round and round.

The First Novel Experience, re-visited

This bit appeared originally at Ed Gorman's blog, a few years ago, in a slightly different form. It seemed like time to re-visit it.

Sometime back, I wrote this book, the one that’s now called The Bastard Hand. I wrote it without any thought about a market or an audience or a future. It was just something that kept eating away at me, wouldn’t get off my back until it was done. It took a long time. I mean, a real long time. But one day I was shocked to discover that I’d actually finished the damn thing. I’d finished it, and I had no idea what to do with it.

If you haven’t read it, I’ll tell you this much: The Bastard Hand is a violent, profane, black comedy-noir-southern gothic. There are no good guys in it, and no bad guys either, not really. There’s just some messed-up people, doing messed-up things. All my personal obsessions got poured into it along the way, and it wound up being a bizarre hodge-podge of genres and influences.

But you know what? I thought it was a pretty good book. I still think so.

For a while, though, it seemed as if I was the only one who felt that way. After the usual editing and polishing up, I did my research and started sending that sucker out to literary agents, one or two at a time. I’d send it off, and sit back to wait for the fame and fortune due me as the creator of this weird literary mess.

I didn’t wait long. The rejections flooded in like a tsunami. There were a lot of the usual “not right for us” sort of things, but also the occasional “no clear market” or “difficult to categorize”. I even got a few “too offensive” and “too depressing” comments.

After about a year of this, I gave up. Just shelved it. This book I’d poured every bit of myself into seemed destined to die alone on some street corner, bumming change from every passing James Patterson or Michael Connelly. But so what? It happens every day, doesn’t it? Some wanna-be strips himself bare on the page, bleeding out his guts, only to be ignored. Sad, but true. I resolved to start working on something new and forget all about The Bastard Hand.

Some time later, I started my blog, Psycho-Noir, more or less just to spout off about books, movies, etc. Maybe even to promote myself a little. On a whim, I posted the first chapter of The Bastard Hand there, along with some short stories and essays I’d written.

And one day… one fine day… I get this e-mail from a guy calling himself Bassoff. Jon Bassoff, from New Pulp Press. Said he liked that first chapter, wanted to know if I’d be interested in showing him the rest. I checked his bone fides and found he’d published 10 or 12 very highly regarded books—and had even done a reprint of an old Gil Brewer!

I sent The Bastard Hand off to him, not expecting anything, to be honest. He’d read it, and write back saying, “Ah, sorry, my mistake. Not quite right for NPP” or, even worse, he’d just “lose” my e-mail.

But that’s not what happened. He loved it.

Weird, huh?

So flash-forward a little over a year, and The Bastard Hand comes out and holy shit, everyone seems to like it a lot. Not just readers of nasty crime fiction, but some of my own literary heroes—Allan Guthrie, Megan Abbott, Dave Zeltserman, Vincent Zandri…

Reviews at genre websites are uniformly positive. People are saying REALLY NICE THINGS.

And I take it all very personally, you know? Because this book was very personal to me, just like most first novels, I’ve been told.

As a bonus, I made some great new friends, people who share a common interest in this thing we call noir. They enriched my life, above and beyond the success of the novel. And many of them went to great lengths to promote my work, and to help me ease my way through the professional stuff (of which I was absolutely clueless).

I've written a number of things since then. But that moment, that weird, invigorating time in my life in which my first novel came out and struck a chord with readers and writers alike, is something I know I'll never get to experience again. It was remarkable, and yes, life-changing.

The Horror of the Eye, Redux

Some of you already know this story. 

When I was about three years old, I had an accident that destroyed the vision in my right eye. I don’t really remember any of it, but from what I’ve been able to figure out from my mom and other sources, I’d found a broken Coke bottle in the front yard (we lived off a dirt road where teenagers would often speed by and toss things out their windows) and decided for some reason that playing with a broken bottle was JUST the thing to do. The teen-age girl who was baby-sitting me at the time freaked out when she saw what I had. She moved to knock the bottle out of my hand, and wound up hitting it directly into my face.

The result was a cut iris and a severed muscle on the left side of the eye. I was rushed to the hospital, where, because my mom was poor and didn’t have insurance, I was left waiting in the emergency room for over an hour—in shock.

They didn’t bother to try to fix the damage. For a few months after that, I wore an eye-patch, and oddly enough, had to learn how to walk all over again. My balance was shot, so it was a challenge. I remember, vaguely, walking down the hall and veering off, running into the wall. I also remember laughing about it, until looking up to see my mom in tears. Weird memory.

Since then, I’ve had some small amount of peripheral vision in that eye, but just barely. Cover up my left eye and I can’t see shit, really. And since the muscle was severed, the right eye drifted to the right.

Believe it or not, this messed-up eye never had much effect on my life. When I was a kid, the drifting effect was hardly noticeable. As a teen, when it started drifting more, it still wasn’t too bad—this was the post-punk ‘80’s, remember, and wonky eyes (a la David Bowie) could actually work in your favor when it came to girls (which was more or less my sole concern in those days). 

In the last ten years or so, though, the drifting had grown continuously worse, to the point where I got occasional head-aches from it, and it was more immediately apparent to people I met. I’d gotten a bit self-conscious about it, for the first time in my life. Whenever I saw photos of myself, I was always startled and a bit mortified. The eye sorta made me look like a sleazy psychopath. And I am NOT sleazy.

…which is my long-winded way of explaining why I had the surgery to repair it almost exactly a year ago now. The vision in my right eye is beyond repair, and the cut iris also, but they were able to pull the eye back into place and center it, and you know what? It's made a huge difference this past year. It's uncanny how much things change when you can actually look people in the eye without being self-conscious.

I still look like a sleazy psychopath, but at least I'll look you straight in the eyes while creeping you out.

A Mean Review of the First 3 1/2 Books in Stephen King's Dark Tower Series

     I waited a long time before sitting down to tackle Stephen King’s epic series, The Dark Tower. Mostly because I knew it would be daunting. Most of King’s longer work is. I’m a big fan of his short stories—in fact, I would say he’s among the finest practitioners of short stories alive today. His collections EVERYTHING’S EVENTUAL and FULL DARK, NO STARS are brilliant examples of emotional, intelligent and insightful story-telling.

     I mention that just so you know I’m not a “King Hater”. Hell, even many of his novels still work for me, like THE SHINING, THE TALISMAN (possibly my favorite), SALEM’S LOT, and even ODD THOMAS (hello, MaxBooth, you sly dog!).

     Anyway, with that established, you’ve probably guessed from the title of this post that I kinda-sorta HATED THE FUCK out of The Dark Tower.

     Oh, it didn’t start with full-on hate. In fact, I sort of liked it at first. It was a gradual thing, the build up to loathing.

     The first book in the series, THE GUNSLINGER, was actually pretty enjoyable. It was relatively short for a King novel (which means it was normal book size for the rest of us). And the premise was simple: Roland, the Gunslinger, chases the Man in Black across the Wasteland, for what reason we know not at that point. Along the way, he encounters Jake, a boy ripped from our world and stranded in Roland’s, and, in one of the highlights, the two of them journey through a creepy underground passage, fight some horrid monsters called Slow Mutants, and Roland makes a chilling sacrifice.

     I liked it, and began the second book immediately.

     THE DRAWING OF THE THREE was longer and the story considerably more complex, but at that point I was still in King’s corner. I enjoyed the directness of Roland’s mission, crossing over into our world in different eras to seek out, rescue, and utilize the individuals he would need to complete his quest. And there were some genuinely great bits—the thing I remember most about it now was Roland’s rescue of Eddie Dean, a heroin addict and drug mule who would be essential to Roland. King leeched every bit of suspense out of that scene as was humanly possible, and when I honestly thought he couldn’t stretch it any further without snapping, he pulled it off.

     But the first signs of eventual rot began showing around the same time. Eddie Dean was… well, he was one of the most irritating characters I’ve ever read about in my life. I hated him so very much, and I’m pretty sure that wasn’t what King intended. I think he meant Eddie to be jokey and flip and always ready with a wisecrack to lighten the mood, but he comes off instead as immature, inappropriate, and obnoxious. If I was Roland, and the success of my journey depended on Eddie Dean, I would just kill the fucker and say forget the whole deal.

     The other central character, Odetta/Detta, was almost as annoying.
     In the third book, THE WASTELANDS, Eddie just gets more and more obnoxious, and the story starts to feel more and more bogged down in extemporaneous drivel. World-building, I suppose they call it, and perhaps someone more versed than me can find something to enjoy in all that Tolkien bullshit, but gah… I really, really wanted King to just get on with it. The uneasiness, the feeling that the honeymoon was going to end that I’d started to feel toward the end of the second book, really hit home with the third one. Long bits of it were just no fun anymore. And Eddie, Eddie, Eddie… why wouldn’t he ever shut the fuck up.

     And remember the sacrifice Roland made in the first book? Well, no problem, because in THE WASTELANDS he gets to sorta UNDO it and everything is groovy with Jake again. So that emotional high point in the series is rendered null and void. No worries (although, to be fair, it is hinted that Roland may yet again make the same sacrifice farther down the road if need be. Maybe he does, I wouldn’t know and don’t care now).

     So I finished THE WASTELANDS feeling a bit annoyed and not really keen on the idea of starting the fourth one, WIZARD AND GLASS. But at that point I still felt like I had the strength to carry on and I guess I really wanted to say I’d read THE DARK TOWER series.

     WIZARD AND GLASS starts with our heroes captives of a crazy train who hates them. The train is called Blaine. Blaine the Train.Yep. And Eddie saves the day by being fucking obnoxious Eddie and telling stupid fucking jokes. Blaine the Train pulls a Star Trek and short-circuits, because Eddie is JUST THAT ANNOYING.

     All that took, like, a thousand pages.

     After that, Roland sits them all down and starts telling them a long, boring story about how he fell in love with Susan Delgado and how he got his guns and his mother and father and blah blah blah, and if I had thought the sequence on Blaine the Train had taken WAY too long, this “story-within-a-story” just pushed me right over the edge.

     I literally threw the book across the room and gave up.

     I packed up the remaining books in the series, as well as the ones I’d already read and threw those fuckers in the trash. I waited for the garbage man to make sure he took them far, far away. I suppose I could have just given them to the library, but ONE, I’m sure they already had more copies of it than they knew what to do with, and TWO, why would I do that to my fellow human beings?

     I know a LOT of people who really love THE DARK TOWER, people with taste I admire in most things. My apologies to you lovely people, but I think you might be defective in this one area.

     And for anyone who wants to scold me for being mean to Stephen King, let me remind you again that I’m generally a fan. And honestly, I think he will be just fine, don’t you?

     I guess that’s all I have to say about that. In conclusion, fuck THE DARK TOWER and the Blaine the Train it rode in on.

"Don't you know smoking is bad for you?"

Ed parked the car in the middle of the parking lot and he and Betty walked hand in hand toward the store. They passed a man leaning against a car, smoking a cigarette.

"Disgusting," Ed said, waving a hand at the thin billowing cloud of smoke. "What a vile habit."

The man flicked his cigarette away and grabbed Ed by the lapels. “My smoke bothering you, buddy?” he snarled.

"I…I…" Ed said, as frightened Betty looked on.

"I’m outside, away from everyone, just trying to enjoy a quiet smoke," the man said. "And I still have to listen to whiny, judgmental little fuckers like you." He cuffed Ed on the jaw and shook him back and forth.

"But… but… second-hand smoke."

The man pulled Ed’s face close to his and said, “Oh, are you afraid you won’t live long enough to enjoy another double bacon cheeseburger?” He poked viciously at Ed’s flabby mid section.

"Smoking is bad for you!" Ed revealed.

"You know what’s also bad for you?" the man said. "Not minding your own damn business and bothering other people. You know what? You’re going to have a cigarette now, you bitchy little fuck."

"What?"

The man let Ed go long enough to pull a pack of smokes out of his pocket. He jammed one in Ed’s mouth.

"You’re going to smoke it," he said.

"But I don’t—-"

The man pulled a revolver out of his other pocket and pointed it at Betty.

"Smoke it or your wife dies!"

Ed had no choice but to accept the man’s light and smoke. Sobbing and coughing, he finished the cigarette in four long drags.

Then his lips fell off and he immediately died from cancer.

The smoker lived another four years. He died after being hit by a bus.

Betty died eight years after that, of chronic alcoholism.

The End.

Questions at Curiouser and Curiouser

Amanda Gowin, author of the story collection RADIUM GIRLS, asks me some weird questions over at Curiouser and Curiouser today.

Four more Westerns from Elmore Leonard

Not long ago, I shared my thoughts here on four Western novels from Elmore Leonard, and promised to do the same with the remaining four once I finished up with them. Well, here they are, then:


LAST STAND AT SABER RIVER

Paul Cable, having fought on the Confederate side during the war, has returned with his family to his homestead on the Saber River, only to find that his land has been taken by the Kidstons', two wealthy brothers loyal to the Union. Cable thought he'd left the fighting behind him, but it seems he's now in the for fight of his life, not just for his home, but for the lives of his family as well. He has a possible ally in Southern sympathizer and gun-runner Janroe, but Janroe, who would like to see the Kidston's dead, may turn out to be Cable's worst enemy in disguise.

This one is very strongly about the concept of honor and family; Cable is reluctant to kill, even though Janroe makes an argument that it's STILL a war that's being waged, only without uniforms. LAST STAND AT SABER RIVER has a somewhat relaxed pace for the first 3/4s, even though there are some startling moments of action and violence. It really gets moving, though, in the last fourth, when revelations come to light and loyalties shift.

There are three female characters-- Cable's wife Martha, Luz, the girl who works at the store Janroe has taken over, and Duane Kidston's bored daughter Lorraine-- but all of them are remarkably well-drawn and believable for a Western written in the 1950's. Especially Martha. That was pretty refreshing. Yes, a rescue of Martha and the children takes place at the climax, but Martha has a hand in rescuing herself as significant as her husband. 

Not my favorite Leonard Western, but very solid nonetheless.

THE BOUNTY HUNTERS

Seasoned scout Dave Flynn is partnered with the young, inexperienced Lt. Bowers on a covert mission across the border to hunt down Apache bandit Soldado. But once in Mexico, the pair find themselves in the middle of an unfolding crisis-- corrupt rurales, under the command of Duro, have subjagated a small village where Flynn has old friends, and Duro is making money off so-called Apache scalps brought in by a blood-thirsty band of bounty hunters. But the scalps don't necessarily belong to Apaches; in fact, some of the the villagers themselves have fallen prey to the nasty scalp hunters. Flynn and Bowers must set things right before they can carry out their own mission.

This is Elmore Leonard's first novel, but it's not the work of an amateur by any means. Leonard had already honed his chops writing short Western stories, and the careful structure of THE BOUNTY HUNTERS gives testament to that. It's a fine piece of work, although not really replete with a lot of the things we would come to think of later as Leonard hallmarks. The dialogue doesn't snap the way his later work does, but instead performs a function at all times. The influence of Hemingway is very obvious. 

Like many of his other early Westerns, the last chapter is really thrilling and action-packed, with our heroes seemingly against the wall and in dire trouble, and the whole thing ends on a very satisfying note.

ESCAPE FROM FIVE SHADOWS

Framed and sentenced to hard labor at the prison at Five Shadows, Corey Bowen isn't about to serve out his time quietly, even though every escape attempt ends in disaster. Until two different women take an interest in freeing him-- one, a woman longing for escape herself, and willing to go to any lengths to achieve it; she offers Bowen a way out if he will kill her spineless alcoholic husband in the process. And two, a lovely young girl who believes in Corey's innocence and may have the legal connections to get him out... if he's patient. But Corey is NOT patient, and when an opportunity to bust out presents itself, he sees no other option but to take it.

The characters in this one are finely-drawn and compelling, although not quite as meticulous as his later work. Despite that, ESCAPE FROM FIVE SHADOWS is a thrilling, tightly-plotted western with lots of action and unexpected twists. The ending is maybe a bit too convenient, with everything lining up nicely for Bowen in the last couple of chapters, but you know, that's just the kind of novel this is. Not on the same level as say, FORTY LASHES LESS ONE or GUNSIGHTS, but still a very enjoyable read.

HOMBRE

HOMBRE was a huge leap forward for Elmore Leonard, in my opinion. His first four novels were all solid, well-written Westerns, but with very little that made them stand out from the hundreds of other Westerns at the time. I'm a fan of those early ones for their remarkable compactness and directness of style, but HOMBRE is the first one that feels really different, not just in its themes but in the way Leonard approaches the characters.

It's unique also in that it's the first (and only) one written in first person. Later, Leonard would vow never to write in first person again, but it works really well in this one. It's narrated by a former stage coach company clerk, riding along on an emergency journey with a disparate group of people-- his former boss Mendez, a fiery tempered young woman who has just been rescued from captivity by Apaches, a shady Indian Affairs agent named Favor and Favor's wife, an even shadier gunman with dubious intentions named Braden, and the "Hombre" of the title: the taciturn John Russell. 

Russell is a source of anxiety for the passengers, being a white man who was raised Apache but is now about to give a shot at living in the white man's world. He is barely tolerated by the bigoted Mr. and Mrs. Favor, until the gunman Braden reveals his true intentions; he is part of a gang lying in wait to steal the money Favor had embezzled from his post as an Indian Affairs agent. With their lives on the line, Russell must lead the group to safety across the hostile landscape of Arizona, with the outlaws in close pursuit.

There's some very good action in HOMBRE, but more than anything else this novel is a character study. Of all the central characters, but most especially of John Russell. He is an enigma to the others, a silent and stoic presence who refuses to submit to the opinions of the others or to placate them with false pretensions. They hate him, they fear him, but they NEED him. And by the end of HOMBRE, they finally learn what kind of man he actually is. And it's something none of them could ever even aspire to.

Mark this as one of my favorites of Elmore Leonard's Westerns. Looking at his bibliography, it seems he took a break from writing fiction for several years after this, some eight years, and when he did return to fiction he concentrated mostly on modern day crime thrillers. But between 1970 and '79, he wrote three more Westerns, all far superior to his earlier work in the genre. That great streak started with HOMBRE.