James ReasonerReseñas

Western

Book 4 was a bit lacking in the axe department, book 5 more than makes up for it. Great, gory fun.

I have a deep and unending love of westerns. There's something so unbelievable about the truth behind the legends of that time, the fact that so many were drawn from what truly happened and nowhere near as embellished as one might think. There's a wildness to the stories, and yes, a romance even behind the crazed sociopaths that ran across the country and territories with guns blazing. So many thought they were in the right - so many courts acquitted them accordingly. How was this only a few generations ago?

[b: Draw: The Greatest Gunfights of the American West|330769|Draw The Greatest Gunfights of the American West|James Reasoner|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1407354263s/330769.jpg|321342] is a surprisingly slim volume that goes into far more detail than one might expect. Between these pages are indeed summaries of the greatest gunfights, histories of those involved, and a bit of speculation on the part of the author about the circumstances. There are fascinating asides now and then, and even a few pictures. I learned a lot from this volume, as it seeks to dig into more than just the 'old favorites'. I was particularly pleased to see the absurd story of the execution of Black Jack Ketchum included, as his has a particularly gruesome ending that never ceases to amuse.

This book is darkly humorous, and I read it with the same surprise I tend to view these stories. It was so recent in the past, and so insane a time. How many died over trivial things? How many were shot just for snoring too loud, or by accident? I'm only amazed that there weren't more civilian casualties in all the mad shoot-outs. Then again, the civilians more often than not were involved in them... Isn't it incredible we lived through such a time?

Decent. Book could have easily been another 100 pages. Felt like each of the three stories were not fleshed out enough.

James and Livia Reasoner, a husband and wife team, wrote a ghostly, riveting young adult novel. They take the reader down an exciting trail of imagination and mystery.
Codi Jackson has lived in a lots of new places because her father frequently changed jobs. She now has a chance to become a part of a group, if there is not another job change in her father’s future.

“She fell in with them, heading down the street, listening to their chatter and laughter. She didn’t take part any more than she usually did, but she still felt like part of the group for the first time. It was a good feeling.”

Codi’s history teacher assigns Keith Wright as her partner for a history project about the Texas Rangers. To help with the project, her grandmother sends her a box of artifacts that belonged to her great-great grandfather who had been a real Texas Ranger. What she learns about her ancestors makes the project more and more interesting. She discovers that she was named after her legendary Texas Ranger ancestor, Cody Jackson. Imagine her surprise when she picks up the Ranger’s badge and feels the heat it generated. Even more surprising is the appearance of her great-great grandfather’s ghost.
After the initial shock wears off, Codi cautiously accepts the presence of the Phantom Ranger. Later they work together to try to solve a crime spree perpetrated by teens on skateboards at the local mall. Read the book to see if they succeed.
Teens will love the independence of the kids in the story and the underlying mystery mixed with some ghostly humor. I think anyone would enjoy this quick, exciting read. Be sure to get it and find out what happens to Codi, Keith and a spectral Texas Ranger.
James and Livia Reasoner have been professional writers for more than 30 years. They write as individuals and as a team. They write in several different genres and have garnered several awards, including the Peacemaker Award, the Private Eye Writers of America award and the America Mystery award collectively. Their websites are www.jamesreasoner.com and www.liviawashburn.com

I've never read anything by Reasoner that wasn't a lot of fun, and this old short story, now available on Amazon, is no exception. A bounty hunter squares off against a crazy outlaw--but what neither of them know is that they have picked a really bad place for their final showdown. This is a cool idea, and Reasoner could very well expand it into a more lengthy tale, which I would gladly read.

Fast paced. Fun. Very Lara Croft-ish. Very unrealistic...but then it is fantasy. Worth the time to read 175 pages.

Reasoner's first novel is a page-turner from start to finish. A Fort Worth private eye is hired by her stepmother to find a missing daughter before her husband returns from a business trip. There are a lot of interesting characters here that Reasoner makes you really care about, and Fort Worth and its vicinity are brought to life effortlessly. Despite some of the violent subject matter, this must have been a good book for Fort Worth tourism, especially with its evocative descriptions of the Amon Carter museum. Reasoner's prose never reaches the level of Chandler or his better imitators, but it is brisk and literate and propels the story forward without a dull moment. The book's only weaknesses are a somewhat too simple plot with the clues being fairly obvious for a reader of mysteries and the expected private eye novel situational cliches--such as getting beat to a pulp. Not quite up to par with TRACTOR GIRL, Reasoner's take on a Gold Medal pulp novel of the Fifties, but definitely recommended. It makes me want to devour a few more of Reasoner's novels of the past thirty years.½

In the talented hands of James Reasoner, the Gold Medal paperback is reborn. A man narrowly escapes death on a dusty Texas back road and is nursed back to health by the tractor girl of the title, a 21-year old blonde living with her father and good-for-nothing brother on a farm. And then, the plot thickens. Reasoner guides the story expertly to its slambang finish, and if you are like me, you probably won't wait too long to pick up his other two "Texas" mysteries.

This is billed as a classic adventure short story, and it certainly delivers. It would have been very much at home in an old pulp magazine. A sea captain, wracked with guilt after a wreck that killed many of his crew and passengers, drifts along as a common seaman, spending his time off soaking his sorrows in bars. He is approached by a beautiful woman....and I'll leave off there, so that you can enjoy this one yourself. This tale is dark, and very well done. The preview of "Tractor Girl", billed as a Texas crime novel by Reasoner at the end of this Kindle book is also intriguing--after reading the first chapter, I had to buy it.

Recommended recommended recommended. As is Reasoner's excellent blog, Rough Edges.

So, when you look at the cover you know exactly what you are in for. A sort of pulpy action adventure novel with dames and bridges and a hunky protagonist. He punches people, shoots people, and swaggers around as he collects clues and fights the bad guys. It's pretty predictable, and run-of-the-mill.

The writing is acceptable, if uninspired. The characters are okay, but a bit cliched. There is some real mustache twisting and damsel threatening. The most interesting part of the story is when the main character reflects back to some previous adventures involving the esoteric. For the most part, it was kind of boring. Oh, and the hero has a gimmick. It's his gun, and it's not a very good gimmick. It's a pretty unrealistic weapon to take globe trotting. Antique guns are like that.

If you want it quick and predictable with full descriptions of the hero's attire, this is for you.

Typical Western. The hero was too human for my tastes.

People in Culpepper, Virginia in January 1861 are mostly content with their lives. However, Lincoln has just been elected and it is feared that after his inaugeration, things will be different.

Will Brannon, age 30, is the sheriff of Culpepper County. He has four brothers and a sister. They live on a farm with his widowed mother, Abigail.

As the war started, the family reminded me of the family in the 1965 movie, Shenandoah, with Jimmy Stewart. This was also a family that tried to live peacefully before the Civil War, they were farmers, mostly males and God fearing.

The three Fogarty brothers are low-life criminals. They are a particular thorn in the side of Will as he attempts to get enough evidence to arrest them for their crimes.

When the war begins, Will is one of the first to enlist. Since he was a sheriff and has a horse, he is made a captain.

The story tells of the universal enthusiasm and optimism for the war, even from the local preacher. None of the hardships or terrible days ahead are even imagined.

We follow Will and his men as they come under Brigadier General Stonewall Jackson adn their first action nears.

I enjoyed the story and remembering the days that led up to the start of the war. Will Bannon is an enjoyable character and the book provided an easy read and was entertaining. It would be particularly interesting to those who enjoy historical events about the start of the Civil War.

This feels like a cheap version of Indiana Jones. If you can get past that, and the relatively little character development of the main character, Gabriel Hunt, and read it for what it is, then you just may like this book.

This story is very one dimensional. Like I said, there is little character development, very little scene development. What it is is an action adventure story that starts with page one and the action doesn't stop until the end. Sure, some of the action seems tired, like you've seen it in countless action movies, which is true. But I don't think you'll say this book is boring.

I really enjoyed this story. I like the fact that this author used a family to write about the Civil War. This way we see the impact it has on this one family as well as the nation as a whole. This book was so good that I can hardly wait to read the next one.

Hunt at the Well of Eternity introduces the world to Gabriel Hunt, whose idea of packing for a trip comes down to making sure he has his Colt revolver and Zippo lighter. Gabriel Hunt once wrestled with Chuck Norris, and their thunderous collisions piled up the ground until the Rocky Mountains were formed. Hunt even has a time-tested method for attracting the ladies--primarily by putting them into mortal danger in treacherous jungles. To tell the detailed plot of Hunt at the Well of Eternity would be a useless exercise--rest assured that the reader will find plenty of fighting and many exciting chases.

It's silly, of course, but the sensibilities that define the Gabriel Hunt universe are not different from any one of hundreds of explosion-laden action movies made in the past two decades. The character most similar to Hunt would be Indiana Jones, and the book even touches on an objective that is slightly speculative in nature, like the Arc of the Covenant in Raiders of the Lost Arc.

Bravo to Charles Ardai, editor of the Hard Case Crime series and author, for trying to revive the pulp adventure for a wide reading audience. As with Hard Case, the Gabriel Hunt books feature lurid art on the covers. While each book appears to be written to stand alone, the first volume hinted at the possibility for a massive plot arc. Given that different authors are employed on each volume, it will be interesting to see how it comes together.

I got 3/4 of the way through and gave up. It lacks historical detail, most of the story revolves around a small circle of characters with very simple predictable plot lines. The supporting characters are all stereotyped. In this particular novel there is a riverboat captain, with his southern bell daughter, a maverick firebrand and his aged sidekick....very boring. The dialog is simple and the background and historical context simpler yet. I don't know why I held out for 3/4 of they way through book 2 in the series. Perhaps it was because I was listening on audio and daydreamed through most of it.

Background: Charles Ardai, the founder of the successful Hard Case Crime imprint, has ventured into reviving another classic pullp genre, the "Hero Pulp", with the new Gabriel Hunt series.

Premise: Gabriel Hunt, and his brother Michael, are independently wealthy heirs, living in contemporary Manhattan. Together, they run the "Hunt Foundation", an organization which sponsors exploration, discovery, and historical research. Gabriel Hunt is the more extroverted and active of the two brothers and has a widely established repubation as an explorer and adventurer. His brother Michael is more scholarly, introverted, but also smoother when it comes to mingling in society and politicing.

Story: At a reception at the Metropolitan Museum, a beautiful Hispanic woman approaches the Hunt brothers. Although Gabriel tries to flirt with her, it soon develops that it is Michael that she is interested in. Just as she is about to give a package to him, a gang of thugs disrupt the reception, pulling guns on the well-to-do attendees. In the subsequent melee, the thugs kidnap the mysterious beauty, but Gabriel manages to obtain the package.

The package proves to contain an old whisky bottle from a long-extinct distillery. The bottle, now broken, proves to have contained only water. It comes wrapped in a confederate battle standard from the Civil War.

A little research proves that both these seem to have a connection to a civil war battle which took place in Florida. Gabriel leaves for Florida to investigate, only to find himself dogged by the same thugs. Subsequent clues lead him to Mexico City, the outlaw-plagued state of Chiapas, and, finally, the jungles of Guatamala -- belegeured, every step of the way, by the same gang of thugs.

The story comes to a climax in a forgotten Mayan city, which contains the eponymous "Well of Eternity", with a final confrontation between the leader of the thugs, versus Gabriel Hunt and a band of unlikely allies he has gathered in the course of the adventure.

Positives:

• As would be expected of the author of this installment, James Reasoner, the story flows smoothly and quickly.
• Stylitically, the prose is transparent and unobtrusive -- it never impedes the flow of the story.
• Characterization: Traditional pulp characters were seldom more than stereotypes, sometimes with one or two distinctive idiosyncracies i.e. "Ham" Brook's swordcane and stylish dress, in Doc Savage. The characterization here goes a little beyond that -- characters are usually believable as personalities, and the main character is given some inner life.

Negatives:

• The one thing I can complain about (once I adjusted my expectations -- see "Errata" below) is that the structure of the chapters begins to get a bit repetitive: I started to notice that every chapter seemed to end on a cliffhanger, or a sudden revelation.
• One thing the old Hero pulps did was to create a sense of urgency, usually fostered by a sense of a higher purpose: Some dreadful evil that must be stopped as quickly as possible, before it comes to full fruition. As contrasted to this, until about two thirds of the way through the story, Gabriel Hunt doesn't really know what is at state: all that he knows is that a bunch of thugs are interested in getting the flag he's received (the McGuffin of the piece), and in impeding his investigation. Therefore, although this is an entertaining as an adventure, it does work as quite the thriller you would expect, given its characterization as a revival of "Hero Pulp".

Errata: This is being marketed as a "Hero Pulp" -- but I'm not really sure if it quite qualifies. There are a number of traits which the hero pulps shared in common, which are not to be found in this initial entry:

• A sense of the grotesque: Most "Hero Pulps" had some kind of grotesque element -- all the better to lend themselves to vivid and lurid covers and illustrations. Sometimes, the grotesque was the hero, himself: e.g. The Avenger, with his dead white face. Sometimes it was the villians (most any of the adversaries of Secret Agent X or G-8). This novel has no such grotesqueries.
• An over-powering sense of urgency and pace: As noted earlier, the protagonists in "Hero Pulp" were usually working against some known, dire, threat to society as a whole, usually with either a known time element, or a villian whose threat to society as a whole steadily accellerated. Alternatively, some of the best pulp writers, like Lester Dent or Robert Hogan, had a knack for getting their heroes out of one bad stituation, into a worse situation, and from that to one even worse than the previous two, combined, so you had to keep turning the pages to find out how the hero was going to emerge unscathed. As contrasted to that, this novel has adventures occur in discrete phases: Attack at the museum, exposition, attack on the way to the airport, attack in Florida, more exposition, etc. Instead of one cohesive, flowing narrative, it seem more a series of discrete episodes, like an old-fashioned serial.
• Alienation: The best pulp heroes were usually alienated in some way: Doc Savage could never "fit in" with ordinary folks because of his appearance -- same for the Avenger. Characters who operated in the dark, such as the Shadow and Secret Agent X sacrificed personal lives and human relationships in their single-minded mission to fight crime. Gabriel Hunt, by contrast, is an accepted public figure, fully integrated within society.
• Omni-Competence: Most "Hero Pulp" protagonists were multi-talented: combining athleticism with skill in science, surgery, aviation, or a dozen areas. As contrasted to this, Gabriel Hunt, although intelligent, fully admits that he is not the scholar of the family, and turns to his brother Michael when he needs information

So is this book truly in the style of vintage "Hero" pulp?

No.

Is it, though, in the pulp mode?

Yes, I think it is -- but a significantly different genre of pulp:

Adventure Pulp: Pulp magazines devoted to narratives of adventures abroad were incredibly popular. Indeed, the pulp named Adventure was one of the most popular, feattured big-name writers, and because it paid higher rates than most pulps, its contents sometimes even bordered on true literature.

Although such magazines typically featured stand-alone stories, they were not above having series characters, such as Perley Poore Sheehan's "Captain Trouble" stories, which ran in Thrilling Adventure s Magazine. What these characters lack in terms of the omnicompetence of the hero pulp heroes, they made up for with the humanity, and consequent believability. (You can also download some of the original stories on the Pulpgen website, here and here).

And, indeed, when Charles Ardai says, in this interview, "I grew up reading Edgar Rice Burroughs and Dumas and H. Rider Haggard and Sax Rohmer (my father's copies) and Edgar Wallace (my mother's), and watching old Buster Crabbe serials whenever they were shown on PBS" -- this clearly suggests that it was these old-school adventure narratives he had in mind, rather than the narrower genre of Hero Pulp.

Evaluation: Although this novel, marketed as a return to "Hero Pulp" doesn't really fit within the constraints of that genre, it does work -- and work very well -- as an old-fashioned adventure story. Come to it expecting something closer to a 21th Century Alan Quartermain than a Doc Savage.

Assessment: Recommended.

Quite enjoyed it -- once I realized it wasn't really a Hero pulp, as advertised -- and am looking forward to the next entry in the series, Hunt Through the Cradle of Fear.

I guess as a murder mystery /thriller it was decent book. However, I thought the characters could have been developed better. I did really enjoy the ending.

Even if you are a die hard fan of the series, the book proves to be a disappointment. The plot line is classic and that may well be the problem: this would have made a better screen play than a book.

Reasoner demonstrates a good grasp of action scenes, basic law enforcement tactics, and weapons handling. The fights and gun battles are meticulously blocked out and flow smoothly. However, this has been done at the expense of any real character development.

Even the established characters come across as largely one dimensional. Walker displays none of the caring and compassion or dedicated service to the community for which the character is famous. Instead, Reasoner writes for him as a hard core cop who doesn't care who gets hurt as long as he gets results.

His characterizations of the remaining core characters is much better; unfortunately, the reader doesn't see much of them to the point that one wonders why he bothered to write them into the story in the first place.

Reasoner also should have spent more time studying the series. Several crucial details are incorrect, including basically known facts such as Trivette's inability to drive a semi or ride a horse or the name of CD's restaurant.

The original characters are interesting and present potential for development, but Reasoner never quite manages to get there. The reader is left with tantalizing hints about these characters but nothing more. Almost all of them are cardboard cut-outs and stereotypes.

It's not a bad read but it's disappointing because it could have been much more if the writer had spent time with the characters. It's almost as though he tried for a writing style like Elmer Kelton's or Louis L'Amour's and didn't quite make it.½

not real big on westerns but I will read them

not real big on westerns but I will read them

Patriots series, Vol.IV by Adam Rutledge