Faraday: The Iron Horse by James Reasoner

The ways to start a western are numerous, but is there any better way than an all-out chase on horse?
Carl Duncan is in trouble. He is driving his horse as hard as possible over the flat plains in Kansas. Behind him are a band of Indians, themselves on horseback.

And they’re gaining.

Knowing he can not make it to the railhead of the Kansas Pacific, the new line being constructed across Indian territory, Duncan goes to plan B: he climbs a telegraph pole and taps into the line. If only he can send a message, he can tell of what he knows. There’s a white man behind the recent Indian attacks against the railhead. And Duncan knows who it is. Alas for him, arrows puncture his leg and he’s captured before he can reveal the name. A pity for him, but not for us readers. Because we don’t know what Duncan saw, we are treated to a delightful tale of the old west.

First in a Series

Thirty years ago, James Reasoner wrote FARADAY: THE IRON HORSE. It is the first of a new series featuring a detective agency based in Kansas, headed by Matthew Faraday. Conceived by author Paul Block, who was an editor at Book Creations, Inc., the Faraday series was intended to be standalone tales with bossman Faraday as the through line. Each entry would focus on a different detective in the agency. It is a great concept and one that enabled multiple writers to put their stamp on this short-lived collection of books.

Matthew Faraday is an older man, but with the fire of justice still burning brightly through him. He takes a meeting with an old friend, Amos Rowland, owner of the Kansas Pacific railroad. The baron suspects the troubles out near the railhead are part of a larger means of sabotaging his line. He wants Faraday’s agency to investigate.

Faraday has just the man. Daniel Britten, aged around twenty-five, is not what you’d think of as a typical western hero. He’s shorter than most, and much more educated. Those qualities, and his upstanding honor, is what carries this tale forward. After meeting with Faraday and Rowland--and Rowland’s beautiful daughter, Deborah--Britten is dispatched out to the railhead to conduct his investigation under the ruse of him being a draftsman.

Once at the railhead, Britten starts looking around, asking questions, and a slew of interesting characters emerge. Deborah is there, having gone out on the same train as Britten. Her fiance, Terrence Jennings, is the construction boss, a man as big as the west with the fists and brawn to back it up. Sam Callighan is an old buffalo man, a surveyor, and one who has had good relations with the Indians. Mordecai Vint is an old geezer, a trader, and one who has been around the area often. His granddaughter, Laura, is his only friend. Throw in a few cowboys and other assorted people, and you’ve got the old west version of a whodunit.

And that’s what makes this book so much fun to read. Through Britten’s investigative process, he discovers clues, sifts the evidence, and formulates theories. Things happen and he is left constantly guessing. As are the readers.

A Gifted Storyteller

Reasoner weaves all of these people in and out of the main narrative with an ease that can only come from years behind a keyboard. His deft characterizations make all these people walk off the page, full-blooded and alive. The dexterity by which he shows you only what you need to see will keep you guessing the identity of the true villain until the last bit of the book. At least he did for me.
I’ve made no secret that I admire Reasoner’s manner of writing. It was his Longarm books that paved the way for my own Calvin Carter: Railroad Detective series. But as I was sucked into this story, two things happened. One, time slipped by imperceptibly. I woke on Sunday thinking I’d read a chapter or two before church. Over two hours later, I had to reluctantly put the Kindle down and hurriedly get ready.

The second is the sheer storytelling prowess. It feels effortless. Now, as a writer myself, I know it takes work, and lots of it, to get a story ready for the public. And with more than 365 books under his belt, Reasoner is a modern pulp master. I constantly highlighted passages, making notes not only about the story, but also about turns of phrase, ways the author highlighted this or that thing.
It is so rewarding to become engrossed in a James Reasoner novel. That THE IRON HORSE is so darn entertaining on the action, western, and mystery fronts is, well, par for the course with a Reasoner book.

We’ve come to expect nothing less.

Of the fiction I've read to date in 2019, this is my favorite. How much did I enjoy this story? I already ordered THE COLORADO SPECIAL as written by Bill Crider.

Background

I was curious about the process Reasoner went through to revise this story from the original 1988 published book, and he graciously answered some of my questions, including the genesis of the entire series.

"Paul Block, who was an editor at Book Creations Inc. as well as writing books for them from time to time, came up with the concept and Matthew Faraday's name, but as I recall, there wasn't really a series bible, just discussions on the phone about what the series would be like. It was set up so that each book would be a stand-alone with different agents working for Faraday and his agency. I remember Paul sent me a list of possible heroes, just their names and maybe a one-line description, and Daniel Britten was one of them. The plot of THE IRON HORSE was mine, though, and I assume the other authors came up with the plots for their books. I know Bill [Crider] did because he and I were always in pretty close contact and knew what the other one was writing."

"In order to produce the new edition of THE IRON HORSE, Livia scanned and OCRed a copy of the original paperback, went through the file to clean up the OCR errors, then turned it over to me. I went through the file adding, deleting, and rewriting to bring it more in line with the way I write now. It's not like there are huge differences in the two versions, but there are lots and lots of small changes that I think make the writing flow better and give more depth to the characters."

Year of an Indie Writer: Week 9

by
Scott D. Parker

Sometimes, the little things are the most difficult.

Evolution of a Book Description

 

Writing a book description is difficult. I can write a 50,000-word novel with little effort yet to come up with a 300-word description *that doesn't tell the whole story*, well, that's an art. For better or worse, here are the three drafts (that made it onto the computer. There were more on paper.)

Draft 1

Outlaw Angus Morton and his gang have made a crucial mistake: they upped their antics from robbing stagecoaches out west near El Paso, Texas, to murdering a railroad agent and burning down a way station. Detectives Calvin Carter and Thomas Jackson are tasked with bringing justice to Morton, one way or another. 

Along the way, Carter meets beautiful Laurel Peel. She’s running from an arranged marriage, but when she’s kidnapped from a train right under Carter’s nose, he discovers the secret documents she hoped would earn her freedom. The papers reveal a machine that beggars belief: a machine armed not only with a Gatling gun but a means to shoot fire. 

But Carter must push aside his curiosity about the enigmatic Peel and locate Morton. The people of El Paso fear Morton and when he might strike next. Rumors float about a fire-breathing dragon capable of utter destruction.  

As a former actor, Carter knows a tall-tale when he hears one. He also understands the reality of death. Every person who witnessed the most recent attack is dead, except for the fetching reporter Aurora Ashe. 

------
Not bad, I thought to myself. One you're supposed to do with trailers is whet the reader's appetite and not give too much away. I included a few key phrases that would have drawn me in as a reader--"secret documents"; "kidnapped from a train"; "Gatling gun".

I changed a few words to tighten things up.

Or so I thought.
_____

Draft 2

Outlaw Angus Morton and his gang have made a crucial mistake: they upped their infractions from robbing stagecoaches near El Paso, Texas, to murdering a railroad agent and burning down a way station. Detectives Calvin Carter and Thomas Jackson are tasked with bringing justice to Morton...one way or another. 

En route Morton's last known location, Carter meets beautiful Laurel Peel. She’s running from an arranged marriage, but when she’s kidnapped from a train right under Carter’s nose, he discovers the secret documents she hoped would earn her freedom. The papers reveal a machine that beggars belief: a machine armed not only with a Gatling gun but a means to shoot fire. 

Pushing aside his curiosity about the enigmatic Peel and the strange contraption, Carter focuses on finding Morton. The outlaw has the citizens of El Paso terrified, wondering where next he'll strike. Rumors abound a fire-breathing dragon capable of utter destruction, a monster which could lay waste to the city. 

As a former actor, Carter knows a tall-tale when he hears one. But when witnesses to the most recent attack turn up murdered, Carter must confront his doubts. Maybe there is something to those rumors. A local newspaper reporter thinks so, and she's out to prove it. But when Aurora Ashe puts her life on the line, Carter comes to her rescue. But who will rescue him when he comes face to face with...the Hell Dragon.

------
A little better. Maybe a little tighter.

Then I got some outside feedback. My wife has the unique way of cutting through all the stuff and getting to the core of a problem. She quickly said there were too many names and too much story. Okay, I said, maybe I can just remove all names except Morton and Carter. And tell less story.

A co-worker of mine at the day job read Draft 2. She took home a printed version and returned with the sheet full of notes. And questions. Valued questions for which I mostly had answers. But the mere fact she posed so many questions also meant the description was not doing its job.

The sole job of a book description is to hook the reader and compel them to buy the book. Or in the case of ebooks, at least download the sample and read it. Clearly, this description was flawed.

Back to the drawing board.
--------

Draft 3

Outlaw Angus Morton and his gang have made a crucial mistake: they upped their crimes from robbing stagecoaches near El Paso to murdering a railroad agent and burning down a way station. Detective Calvin Carter and his partner are tasked with bringing Morton to justice. 

One way or another. 

When Carter arrives at Morton's last known location, he finds the town on edge. The bandit has the citizens terrified, wondering where next he'll strike. Even stranger are the rumors of a fire-breathing creature capable of utter destruction, a monster which could lay waste to the city. 

As a former actor, Carter knows a tall-tale when he hears one. But he also knows a few things are not make believe:  

Witnesses to the most recent attack turning up murdered.  

Carter himself attacked. 

And the deep, metallic churning sound of an infernal machine approaching...

-----
That's what I went with. It has way less story. Actually, it only has the part of the plot that gets Carter and his partner going and out to El Paso to investigate. All the other stuff is still in the book, but now, folks will be able to see how they all fit together while reading the novel.

Is it the best description? Probably not. But then again, the great part about being an indie writer is being able to adjust on the fly. If HELL DRAGON doesn't sell well, then perhaps there's a problem with the description.

Or the cover. But as soon as I found that upper image, I knew it was going on the cover.

Speaking of cover, here it is.

Lesson Learned

 

Speaking of doing things on the fly, I had forgotten how soon before 1 Jan 2019 I delivered the files for EMPTY COFFINS to Amazon. It was probably around 27 Dec. Here's the weird thing: December has 31 days in it. Not sure you knew that. Came as a shock to me, too. So when I uploaded the Amazon file of HELL DRAGON on 27 February, I was informed the book would go live not on 1 March but 3 March.

So, Amazon folks, you'll have to wait until Monday, 3 March, to snag your copy of HELL DRAGON. It's available for pre-order, so you'll have to make your Monday marvelous with the new book.

And, looking to the future, I've just learned April has only 30 days, so I'll be sure to have the file of AZTEC SWORD up and ready well before 1 May.

[shakes head]

Star Wars Trailer by Topher Grace

I have been a Star Wars fan since 1977. I've loved, to a greater or lesser degree, every live action movie since. Star Wars has been an integral part of my life. I'm a founding member of the Star Wars Generation.

Topher Grace--yes, that Topher Grace--has drawn content from all 10 live actions movies to present an overarching trailer of all of Star Wars to date. Have a look.

Not only does this trailer to justice to the greater story, it is incredibly emotional. Goosebumps rippled over my arms and neck when I hear Yoda's "There is another" comment and it's the fantastic scene from The Force Awakens when Luke's lightsaber vaults into Rey's hands.

So very, very good. A perfect way to ready ourselves for this year's Episode IX

Rogue One

 

Speaking of Star Wars, I had a hankering to watch Rogue One again. I went to Netflix, but the movie was gone. Enter Half Price Books. Armed with a new blu-ray DVD, I watched this show again, the first time since it's debut in 2016.

Boy does it hold up well. It's a true war film in the Star Wars universe. Like all real-life heroes who know the thing for which they fight is larger than themselves, the actions of Jyn Erso and company are commendable.

The movie even made me tear up over a robot.

And that Darth Vader scene? The one thing I really hoped for going into the movie back in 2016 was to have Vader be bad again. Really bad. And dang, if he didn't deliver.

If you haven't watched it in a while--or ever--treat yourself.

What I'm Reading

 

I’m a member of the Men’s Adventure Paperbacks of the 70s and 80s. So is James Reasoner. He posted on this group the cover of the new book he’s publishing: Faraday: The Iron Horse. Well, the cover alone grabbed me. The concept solidified it. And the reading, so far, is exactly what I’ve come to expect from James.

Here’s the link to his blog where he gives some background. I’ll have my review up next week (most likely).

Longarm and the Border Wildcat

In the 229th adventure of Custis Long, U.S. Marshal, he acquires a partner in the most Longarm-ish way possible: a fight over a woman.

Just as the voluptuous red-headed Anne Marie is about to lead Longarm up some stairs to her boudoir, a bearded, beefy hombre questions the federal lawman about his intentions with "my girl." The brawl ensues and both men get in their licks under the man, Lazarus Coffin, produces his Texas Ranger badge. Longarm laughs and trumps the state badge with his federal one. It is only then they realize they are both in Del Rio, Texas, for the same reason: to provide security during a delicate negotiation between diplomats from America and Mexico.

This being an adult western, naturally there is yet another woman. She is Sonia Guiterrez, sultry daughter of the Mexican diplomat, Don Alfredo. She in openly wanton in her wants and desires and she teases just about every man in every scene in which she appears. Naturally, her father is unaware, but Coffin and Longarm aren't. Thus begins a rivalry between the two men to see who can bed the temptress. Guess who wins.

Another factor is at play in this story: a mysterious marauder, El Aguila. The local owlhoots who ride through the streets and shoot up the town are alleged to be members of his gang. That may be so, but if they are his men, the leader himself proves too elusive.

Longarm and Coffin chaff at the boredom of standing guard while the diplomats negotiate, but that lull is quickly dispatched when El Agulia's gang again rides into town. This time, however, they kidnap Sonia. When asked why she was out of her hotel room, Longarm doesn't answer that he and Sonia were having a rendezvous in an alley.

Naturally, the two lawmen must pursue the kidnappers and bring back the lovely Sonia. Along the way, they meet El Aguila himself, sling lead with the bandits, and uncover the truth behind the entire scheme.

As always, these Longarm westerns are fun, action-packed, and a joy to read. I especially enjoyed the interplay between the more cautious and reasoned Longarm and the brash Coffin. This one was written by James Reasoner.  I emailed him and asked if Coffin ever showed up again in a future Longarm novel he wrote. He said no, so this is your one and only time to meet the big Ranger.

Speaking of Ranger, I also got a smile on my face when Reasoner namedropped "Jim Hatfield" as one of the Texas Rangers Longarm wished had been sent to Del Rio. Hatfield was the lead character written by Bradford Scott in the old pulp magazine TEXAS RANGER. Speaking of old pulp characters, there's another one hidden in plain sight. Read this book and see if you can identify the character.

Killer's Doom: A Walt Slade Western by Bradford Scott

I first made the acquaintance with Walt Slade a couple of weeks ago on my vacation up to East Texas. Then, it was a novel I picked out at random from a wonderful antique store in Jefferson, Texas, and read most of on the vacation itself. I enjoyed FOUR MUST DIE so much that I sought out more Walt Slade westerns. Turns out I already owned one in my large collection of old paperbacks I inherited from my grandfather.

KILLER’S DOOM was that book and man what a title. And it’s a pretty nifty cover, too. The back description leads off with a banner headline: “Catch Covelo!” That is the underlying plot of this novel.

Slide is out west in El Paso and he’s received a threatening letter:

“El Halcon, you will not catch Juan Covelo, but some day Juan Covelo will catch you, and then for you it will be muy malo! Muy malo!”

For those that don’t know, El Halcon is Slade nickname. It means the Hawk, likely because he has such good eyesight. Anyway, Covelo is a legend in the area for he rides around with a great black hood over his face, committing all sorts of horrible crimes and violence upon his victims. Slade correctly reckons it is to hide the bad guy’s true identity so he takes up the case.

Covelo has a gang of owlhoots riding with him, eight if I remember correctly. What makes this novel so grand is watching over Slade’s shoulder as he investigates, gathers evidence, fights, shoots, and whittles down the gang number until there is only Covelo left. That's not a spoiler. That's a western trope, one with which I have zero problem.

When I mentioned to my dad that I had read that first Slade book, he immediately started rattling off all the traits Slade was known for: his horse, Shadow, his singing, his rapid fire shooting, his eyes. I was taken aback with the mention of singing. A singing cowboy? In a book? In FOUR MUST DIE, not all of those were apparent. They were all there in KILLER’S DOOM, including the singing.

Shadow, the horse, was also on full display. I got a sense of his character the first time I met him, but in KILLER’S DOOM, he actually talks! Well, not really, but he and Slade have such a good camaraderie that author Bradford Scott (really A. Leslie Scott; click here for some background) actually wrote dialogue for Shadow, then followed it up with something like “…his snort seemed to say.” Charming.

KILLER’S DOOM also introduces the reader to a past villain, one that Slade already brought to justice. It was nice to see that the author understood weaving ongoing threads throughout this long series even back in the day when each book seemed to stand on its own.

I enjoyed KILLER’S DOOM about as much as FOUR MUST DIE--maybe a tad more--and I really love the character of Walt Slade. I have already started my third Slade western in a row!

When it comes to westerns and western writing, there are still things, techniques, and terminology I need to learn. As part of my education, I read with a pencil in my hand and circle various words and phrases I see over and over again. From there, I extract them into my own files and read them over before and during the writing of my own westerns. Here’s a sample two page spread.

I highly recommend the Walt Slade westerns. Now that I know what to look for (hat tip to James Reasoner), I have spotted them in just about every used bookstore I’ve entered in the past few weeks. I love discovering a new-to-me series in which I get to scour bookstores in the coming months and years hoping to find yet another Walt Slade adventure.

Four Must Die: A Walt Slade Western by Bradford Scott

On a recent trip to East Texas, I stopped in Jefferson, Texas, and scoured a few antique stores. I found a motherlode of old paperback westerns, maybe two hundred or more, all for a dollar each. The issue was which ones to buy? I didn’t need any L’amour or Gray or Short, so I started judging the books by the cover art and cover blurb. FOUR MUST DIE was branded a Walt Slade Western. Something tickled the back of my brain enough that I bought it and read it on my vacation.

And I’m glad I did. I thoroughly enjoyed this novel.

As I am wont to do—please tell me I’m not alone in what I’m about to tell y’all—I saw a book by an author I’ve read and know (James Reasoner’s Death Head Crossing) so I propped it up for the next buyer to see. So charmed with myself, I took a picture and sent it to James. He thanked me, and then promptly started telling me about the other books in the photo! I told him via email that I very nearly called him to discuss what I was seeing because he has forgotten more about westerns than I’ll probably ever know.

He was the one who told me that FOUR MUST DIE was the last of the paperback originals in this series and the only one not written by Walt Slade’s creator, Leslie Scott. The real author of FOUR MUST DIE was Tom Curry, a fellow author who penned some Jim Hatfield novels prior to this. I have come to the conclusion that if there’s an old-school pulp writer that I want to learn a bit about—especially if it’s a western—all I have to do is google the author’s name and James’s name and there will likely be a blog post. Here’s one for some background on Leslie Scott.

Back to today’s forgotten book. FOUR MUST DIE shows Texas Ranger Walt Slade skulking around El Paso searching for Barney Hale, an outlaw with a peculiar set of instructions: he needs to kill four seemingly random men in the region. Slade muscles his way into Hale’s good graces and convinces the owlhoot that, Slade, can get the job done in half the time. Hale agrees, and Slade sets his plan in motion.

He knows these four men—the editor of the newspaper, a cattleman with land north of town, a worker in the land office, and the owner of a smelting plant—and gets them to vanish for a time until Slade can get to the bottom of this whole shebang. There’s an oily attorney, the Honorable Alton Z. Carson, behind the scheme that even Slade can’t figure out until a single word is uttered: “Gold.”
What follows is a flat-out joyride of a western. Slade is a fun character, quick on the draw and even quicker with his wits. He is tough as nails, but isn’t above actual manual labor in order to root out the bad guys. And I love his horse, Shadow. There’s a unique beast with a special way he runs when the bullets start zinging past them.

You remember me mentioning that tickling I had in the back of my brain when I saw FOUR MUST DIE in the store? Well, that’s because I inherited a Walt Slade book from my grandfather. I’ll be getting to that book next.

As James wrote to me, this was the last of the Walt Slade westerns. Fittingly, the last paragraph reads thus: "With a wave of his slim hand, Walt Slade mounted Shadow, and they [the men left behind] him ride away, to where duty called and high adventure beckoned." That's a great way to end a series...and a perfect starting point for someone like me.

FOUR MUST DIE is a well-written western and if it’s any indication of the type of story of all the other Walt Slade oaters out there, I just found me a new series to collect.

BTW, if you're interested, here is the photo I sent to James.

Longarm and the Bank Robber's Daughter by Tabor Evans/James Reasoner

I knew about Longarm long before I read a single one of his cases.

My grandfather only read westerns. They were stacked and double-stacked in a few bookshelves throughout his house in Tyler, Texas. Most of them were the big names: Louis L’Amour, Zane Grey, Luke Short, etc. I was a Star Wars kid so I paid those old paperbacks no mind. But they had great covers, including the ones for Longarm. My grandfather didn’t have many Longarm novels distinctive back in those days with a nearly all white cover and a few images, but he had a few. My dad’s recollection of why my grandfather read those novels was that he had read everything else, probably more than once. Now, I wasn’t a dummy back in the day, but a cowboy book with a pretty lady mostly undressed meant something. There was sex in them thar pages! It was a small miracle I never scanned those books on summer nights, trying to find those particular sex scenes. Heck, if I’d have actually read the books, I would have discovered just how entertaining the stories actually were.

But I wasn’t ready in the early 80s. I am ready now. So I cracked open Longarm and the Bank Robber’s Daughter. This is the 301st entry in the series that began in the late 70s and ran all the way until 2015 with the 436th installment! Custis Long, nicknamed “Longarm,” is a deputy U.S. Marshal in the old west, likely the 1880s. He is based in Denver, Colorado, and is sent all over the region to solve cases and bring bad guys to justice. And to bed women along the way.

Why this novel? I have four of them right now, three of which were written by James Reasoner. Yeah, for those that don’t know, “Tabor Evans” was a house name that many different writers used. Mainly, I wanted to see how a Longarm novel was constructed. So I opened up each one and read the opening passages. This is how Bank Robber’s Daughter starts.

Longarm jerked open the door of his rented room and growled, “What the hell do you want?”

Then his jaw tightened as he realized that Death had come knocking on this mild spring evening in Denver.

Death wore the pale, haggard face of an old man who clutched at his middle. Crimson blood welled between the fingers of the hands he pressed against his belly. He leaned forward and croaked, “G-Gold…”

Bingo! If I had picked this book up in a bookstore back when it was published in 2003, I would have walked out with it. Sold with three paragraphs. Action in three paragraphs. And that’s pretty much how this story rolls.

It turns out old man is Floyd Pollard, recently released from prison, and who shared a cell with Clete Harrington, an old bank robber that Longarm put in prison. The loot Harrington stole was never found, but Pollard’s dying words were “Sweetwater Canyon.” Naturally, Longarm is assigned the case and he’s about to head out to Sweetwater Canyon, New Mexico, when Emily Harrington shows up. She’s the titular daughter and, after a few more scrapes, Longarm agrees that she tag along.

What follows is a very good story about hidden gold, a range war, and enough clues scattered throughout the book that, upon learning the truth at the end, you realize Reasoner laid it all out for you. The action-packed structure of the book is such that, even if you get a chapter mostly of traveling down from Colorado to New Mexico with the characters talking, something happens at the end of the chapter that compels you to keep going. Definition of a page turner.

I didn’t know what to expect when the sex scenes arrived. How would they be written? How graphic would they be? Well, it turns out that the scenes were rather romantic. The action is spelled out, but the words Reasoner uses to describe the anatomy and what’s happening are euphemistic. You know exactly what’s going on and being done, but the word choices are nice. I emailed James to ask him about that and he said the descriptions were up to the discretion of the individual writer. I prefer it this way.

The ending was a nice surprise. By the time I read the last word, I was grinning ear to ear. I so thoroughly enjoyed this book that I immediately started another. But that’s a different review.