Silver Express

A Black Horse Western

Gillian F. Taylor

Robert Hale Limited, London, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-7090-8781-6
Hardcover, 159 pages
£12.99
$17.73 from The Book Depository.com

Reviewed by Larry W. Chavis

Alec Lawson could not stop the robbery of the Northern Colorado Line train, his main concern being to keep the bandits from killing anyone. As sheriff of Dereham County, the Scottish transplant knew he’d be out hunting for the outlaws and the silver bullion from the Cornucopia Silver Mining Company they had made off with. What he didn’t know was that this robbery was a piece of a larger plan that would land him and his deputies on a whirlwind ride of danger.

After a hundred years of movies, television series, novels, and short stories, there is still something enticing about tales of the Old West, whether they are gritty, true-to-life stories, or those that hark back to the “thrilling days of yesteryear” represented by the Lone Ranger and Tonto, where the good are incorruptible and only the villains wear black hats. Silver Express is a western of the latter sort. Think back, if you are old enough, to the Saturday afternoon matinee westerns, to heroic TV lawmen like Matt Dillon and the dry-cleaned version of Wyatt Earp played by Hugh O’Brian and you’ll have the essence of Sheriff Alec Lawson. Lawson is presented as a Scottish immigrant as a child who lost his parents early, then went on to be come a hero in the Army. It was while rising from private to captain that he earned such respect from three of his troopers that they followed him after the Army to become his deputies in Dereham County, Colorado. Lawson is the typical TV western lawman, upright, honorable to a fault, stern to the bad guys, tongue-tied around the ladies. His three hero-worshiping deputies would cheerfully follow him to the mouth of hell and crack jokes riding through the gate.

As in so many westerns, the outlaws are mere tools of clandestine forces with an agenda, and the expected antagonism of railroad-mining interests-law enforcement comes into play. The plot is commonplace for a story of this kind, making use of the tried-and-true where horses, rifles, trains, and outlaws congregate. In fact, ordinary is perhaps the best summing-up for Silver Express.

Copyright ©2009 Larry W. Chavis

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION
I have a material connection because I received a review copy that I can keep for consideration in preparing to write this content. I was not expected to return this item after my review.

Robert Hale Limited, London,  July 31, 2009
ISBN 13: 978-0709087656
Hardcover, 160 pages
£12.99    (Available from Book Depository, $21.30)

Reviewed by Larry W. Chavis

Jake Larribee doesn’t need much out of life: enough money to keep him in whiskey and easy women and a bank to rob when that runs out. When a posse nearly catches him in flagrante delicto in the Silver Sands “bawdy house” Jake makes a window-crashing, hard riding escape for safer parts of New Mexico Territory. Along the way he rescues a young gun-hand, Blaze Morgan, from a certain hanging and gets involved with a suttler and his beautiful young daughter, naturally landing him in a war with the biggest rancher around.

So far THE DEATH SHADOW RIDERS is typical Hollywood-western-mythos, and it does little to rise above that level throughout. Having killed the “straw boss” of the Slash Y spread when he attempted to force himself on the girl, Larribee and Morgan light out for Arizona, but on hearing how Simpson, owner of the Slash Y, has taken revenge for his dead hand, they ride back into New Mexico where they take on the ranch full of hard men. Though Larribee is a bank robber and Morgan a hired gun and killer, one can almost see the white and black hats as they go up against the Slash Y villains.

Despite its liberal use of Western clichè THE DEATH SHADOW RIDERS still provides a few hours’ pleasant diversion if one accepts its Saturday-afternoon-matinee presentation and the author’s use of some rather peculiar verb-forms: one character “gimlet-eyed” another on a couple of occasions, and a few other curious combinations are scattered throughout. Still, if one is looking for a damsel-in-distress tale set in old New Mexico, THE DEATH SHADOW RIDERS will provide an afternoon’s escape.

Copyright ©2009 Larry W. Chavis