BOOK REVIEW

Saddle on a Cloud (1952) by Frank C. Robertson

I’m on a western-fiction roll and here’s one more to add to last week’s The Lone Deputy by Wayne D. Overholser for Patti Abbott’s Friday’s Forgotten Books over at Pattinase and Todd Mason's blog Sweet Freedom. Happy Thanksgiving to you all!

Drift Wood, framed for cattle rustling seven years ago, returns as foreman of the Flying M ranch owned by his friend, Doc Egan, to clear his name. But, Drift has a fight on his hands…

My copy of the book

Drift Wood to his friends, Driftwood to his enemies… Either way, the hero of Saddle on a Cloud has been a drifter for seven years, framed for rustling and banished from the town of Idanha where he and his three friends grew up. One day, he decides to return “home” to help his old friend, Doc Egan, fight against rival outfits led by Hoke Guyer, a brute of a man who wants to take over Doc’s Flying M ranch at any cost.

Doc and his wife Edith, and their two little children, live in fear as Hoke accuses Doc of stealing his cows which his men force on to the Flying M range as a nasty pressure tactic. Backing the big, hulking man are his crooked foreman Bish McCarty and hired gun Latigo Spence and nearly all the members of the cattlemen’s association who believe Doc is a rustler. There are a few ranchers who believe he's innocent and keep away from the shady events that unfold at regular intervals.

(Bish McCarty) spoke quietly, “You were told to stay away from this country, Drift. You made a big mistake by coming back.”

“It’s a free country, Bish; hasn't anybody ever told you?” he queried easily.

Standing between Hoke and his wicked aim is fast-gun Drift Wood and his two other friends, Ev Clayton, an Englishman and a gambler, and Bert ‘Teach’ Thackeray, a carefree cowpuncher who works with him on the Flying M.

While Drift is looking out for Doc, his own back is covered by Ev and Teach, and together the four childhood buddies take on Hoke Guyer, owner of the Big G, and his cronies. 

Frank C. Robertson

But, is it really all that simple? Not when Drift finds out the “treachery” of one of his friends and “blackmail” to boot. It comes as a huge shock to the honest-to-goodness cowboy who would rather face his enemies unarmed than live with the bitter truth that his closest friend could have prevented his frame-up and ostracism seven years ago and saved Doc Egan all his troubles now.

Saddle on a Cloud is a test of character of the major players—the good people—in the story who, apart from Drift Wood, Doc Egan, Ev Clayton and Teach, include Doc’s wife Edith who feels safer with Drift around; Bish McCarty’s sister, Clover, who is in love with Drift; Dolly Fannin, a tobacco-chewing cowgirl whose father keeps his distance from Hoke Guyer; Kitty, Ev Clayton’s beautiful sister and Drift’s love interest; Dee Walker, owner of the Bull Corral saloon who's behind Drift with his shotgun; and Ben Larkin, a well-liked and respected black man in the Flying M outfit who swears allegiance to Drift.

These people remain loyal to Drift whose appeal lies in his innate capacity to shoulder the burden of his suffering friends, Doc and Edith, even if it might get him killed. Therein lies the appeal of the book.

The 188-page novel by Frank Chester Robertson (1890-1969), an American writer of dozens of westerns, short stories and newspaper articles, keeps you absorbed from the beginning to end. The story is written in an easy style, which I suspect is a Robertson trademark (this being my first novel by him), and plays out a lot in the country where the rival outfits of Doc Egan and Hoke Guyer hustle cattle onto each other’s range. There is almost a romantic quality about the way fearless cowboys like Drift Wood, armed with a six-shooter, stand their ground and take on a group of enemy riders trying bulldoze their way onto somebody else's range. Drift would rather defuse the tension with a spoken word than with a quick draw of his gun.

“Keep it down, Bish,” Drift cut in. “You’ll get the second slug. I’m tired of fooling with punks like you and Phil who ain’t neither one dry behind the ears.”

This is the kind of stuff I like reading in a western and Robertson tells it really well. While reading Saddle on a Cloud I couldn't help wishing I was there on the range, watching from a safe distance and away from the possible line of fire. I wondered what range wars or conflicts were like in the real Wild West, and how realistic their depiction in western novels. I'm sure it can’t have been fun.

FILM REVIEW

Fargo (1996)

Todd Mason will have the links to many Overlooked Films and Television over at his blog Sweet Freedom. Don't forget to check them out.

Marge Gunderson (Frances McDormand): So that was Mrs. Lundegaard on the floor in there. And I guess that was your accomplice in the wood chipper. And those three people in Brainerd. And for what? For a little bit of money. There’s more to life than a little money, you know. Don’tcha know that? And here ya are, and it’s a beautiful day. Well, I just don’t understand it.

“Now you see me, now you don’t” is how I’d describe actors like Francis McDormand. I first saw her in Mississippi Burning (1988) as the wife of a county deputy sheriff who batters her for helping two FBI agents in their investigation of the murders of civil rights activists. At that time I didn’t realise she was McDormand. I must have been engrossed in Gene Hackman’s hardnosed character, especially the part where he takes a razor blade to her husband’s throat in a barbershop.

It took another film, Fargo, to bring her back into the narrow confines of my memory. Between these two movies and especially since the Coen brothers’ 1996 film I might have seen McDormand in some of her other ventures, though I don’t remember any, not unless I run through her filmography. I haven’t done that so far, perhaps after I post this piece. 

What I liked most about Fargo, superbly written and directed by Ethan and Joel Coen, is McDormand’s character, small-town police chief Marge Gunderson, particularly her way of speaking with a slight expression on her face and a smile playing at the corners of her mouth. I read, somewhere, that her distinctive speech, where the words are delivered slow and long, is reminiscent of the prevailing accent in the Midwestern state of Minnesota, the winter setting of the film. For instance, Marge often responds with “yaaa, yaaa!” emphasising on the vowels. You kinda like the way she talks.

A very pregnant Marge Gunderson is woken up from slumber, so to say, to investigate murders on her turf, the result of a kidnapping gone wrong. Of cheerful disposition, Marge leads a quiet and contented life with her husband Norm Gunderson (John Carroll Lynch) who is supportive of his wife and her job in a rather unassuming way. 

Jerry Lundegaard (William H. Macy), who works for his rich father-in-law’s car dealership, is steeped in debt and in a last-ditch effort to get out of his financial crisis decides to have his wife kidnapped so that he can milk her father for a hefty ransom and clear his dues. He hires Carl Showalter (Steve Buscemi) and Gaear Grimsrud (Peter Stormare) to carry out the task on the condition that there would be no bloodshed and, above all, his wife would come to no harm.

However, the kidnap caper does not go as planned and soon bodies start piling up and it’s not long before Marge begins to sniff around Jerry’s office and asks him questions that make him more awkward and uncomfortable than he already is. 

There is nothing pretentious about Fargo. The two main characters, Marge and Jerry, are ordinary people, but opposites: one is driven by her values and ethics, the other by his greed and ambition. The film rolls at an easy pace as police chief Marge Gunderson investigates the murders in a quiet and matter-of-fact manner, in what could be deemed as a realistic setting for a crime thriller. Although seasoned actor Macy gives out a fine performance with his bungling act, it’s McDormand who walks away with the honours—she won an Oscar for her role (as did the Coens for best writing and screenplay). This is her film.

The Lone Deputy by Wayne D. Overholser, 1991

It’s Friday and time for another Forgotten Books edition at Patti Abbott’s blog Pattinase.

Price Regan stood alone, as terribly alone as a man could be, but that was the cost of being a lawman.

My copy of the book

The story of The Lone Deputy by the late American western author Wayne D. Overholser reminded me of the stories I used to read in pocket-sized cowboy comics, known as Cowboy Western Comics or Western Picture Library. I still have a few of the latter, with colour art work on the covers and black-and-white illustrations inside.

Typically, you have Marshal Price Regan maintaining law and order in a small town called Saddle Rock, Colorado, and doing a good job of it too. His problems, however, don’t lie within the town, which is eyeing its own county, as much as they do with the three neighbouring ranches—Rocking C owned by Cole Weston, Broken Ring belonging to the Mohawk brothers, and Bridlebit run by family man Red Sanders. Their spreads are located on either side of the Yellow Cat Creek which empties into Elk River.

The biggest spread of them all is Weston’s Rocking C that stretches for miles to the south, on the other side of the river. Being the first cattleman to occupy the vast land near Saddle Rock, Weston also behaves like he is the law of the land.

The three ranch owners, in cahoots with politically inclined banker Barry Madden, are bent on running poverty-stricken settlers out of Yellow Cat, particularly the very crooked and ugly faced Walt Cronin who is accused of stealing their cattle. Cronin manages a store and saloon that caters to the harmless settlers who are mostly into farming. 

Weston, who has gunslingers protecting his back round the clock, is the de facto ring leader and the most evil of the lot, though the Mohawk brothers, Tom and Joe, offer him stiff competition. Weston and Madden “order” Regan to get rid of Cronin and the other nesters and rustlers failing which they would settle the matter their way. And they do just that, as Regan refuses to do their bidding until he has strong evidence against Cronin and the others.

The Lone Deputy is the frontier story of a lone man who must fight a lone battle against the wealthy and powerful ranchers. All Price Regan has on his side are his badge and his gun, his conscience, an indomitable spirit, and his girl Laura Madden. Perhaps, they are more than enough for the brave marshal of Saddle Rock.

“With no more backup than his shadow, Regan would fight for what he knew was right—even if it meant gunning down every last one of Weston’s hired killers.” 

Wayne D. Overholser (1906-1996), author of more than seventy western novels and winner of the Spur Award as well as the Western Writers of America Lifetime Achievement Award, has written a classic western adventure. The 189-page western novel is a pleasant read, on account of the author’s simple narrative style and a credible story that gives you both sides of frontier justice.

Skyfall: The maturing of James Bond

M: Are you taking me hostage? 

James Bond: You could call it that. 

 
On Monday night, I saw Skyfall with my wife and a dozen-odd people scattered around the 300-seat auditorium. People were playing musical chairs, switching their designated seats with the empty ones for a better view. We stayed put in ‘E’ row from the rear: the view was clear. There were no latecomers after the credits had rolled or after the interval was over. The theatre was nearly empty and the twenty-third James Bond flick would've looked the same no matter where you sat.

Except for Bond, Daniel Craig’s third outing as the famous British spy. He is different in Skyfall, more vulnerable, more appealing, and more convincing than he is in Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace. Much of it has to do with his boss M, the head of MI6, the British intelligence service, who casts a long shadow on Bond and everything he does in the film, and vice versa.

Bond’s mission is closely entwined with the safety of his commanding officer, played by Judi Dench in what is, unarguably, her best Bond film ever. Forget her previous six roles as M. Get a load of her in Skyfall.

007’s mission—to retrieve a computer hard drive encoded with classified details of undercover NATO agents in terrorist organisations—leads him to his nemesis, Raoul Silva (Javier Bardem), a former MI6 agent turned rogue.

A rogue not of his own making, he says, rather forced to become one by M who let the Chinese have him for a few years. Silva, who sports golden hair and laughs in an insane way, comes back to avenge his incarceration and torture. He takes out a few MI6 agents, destroys a part of MI6 headquarters in London, and then comes after M, nearly killing her at an intelligence committee meeting.

Silva is M’s past and he is haunting her present. Gareth Mallory (Ralph Fiennes), a former lieutenant colonel in the British Army and Chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee, is forcing her, with political persuasion, to retire gracefully, because her computer system and her position in MI6 have been compromised. But the formidable M stays to fight Silva with her most trusted agent by her side.

Skyfall is as much about M as it is about James Bond. Director Sam Mendes gives M a wide berth in the film, as wide as the sweeping and breathtaking landscape of Scotland and its cloud-capped hills—the scene of the final battle between Bond and Silva that plays out in Bond’s family estate, Skyfall.

The destruction of Skyfall is reminiscent of the destruction of Wayne Manor in Batman Begins and you wonder how much of it influenced Mendes, especially since both Bond and Wayne were orphaned at a very young age. However, unlike Bruce Wayne who vows to rebuild his family home brick by brick, 007 looks back at his burning estate and mutters that he never much cared for it. He turns around and follows Silva who is following M into the dark night.

M never says so in any of her films but there are enough hints to suggest that James Bond is her favourite agent. Her concern for Bond’s well-being has been all too obvious in the previous six films. In Skyfall, M takes her strictly businesslike relationship with Bond to a new and personal level—that of a “mother” and her favourite “son” who swears to protect her with his own life. You know he’s doing a job he’s trained for, and die if necessary, yet you can’t help thinking there’s more to the two than an intel head and her most trusted agent.

If I were to describe Skyfall in one word, I’d say, as the British would say, bloody brilliant and if I were to rate the film on a scale of 1 to 10, I’d give it a respectable 8. The film scores well on most aspects we have come to associate with a Bond film, right from the time the credits roll to a smorgasbord of kaleidoscopic colours set to a great theme song, Skyfall, by English singer Adele. Noted American composer and conductor Thomas Newman sustains the musical narrative of the film with some fine background score. Unlike in his previous two films, Craig’s Bond also delivers some notable one liners in this, a throwback to the days of Roger Moore.

An 8 out of 10 does not mean Skyfall has no shortcomings. There are plenty of those too. I’ll mention some.

One, the jaw-dropping fight scene between James Bond and mercenary killer Patrice on the roof of a speeding train somewhere in the Turkish highlands should mark out 007 as a superhero, which, in a way, he is, more so in the last few movies in the series.

Two, the blonde-haired Javier Bardem as Silva is far from convincing. In spite of the ominous nature of his mission, a terrorist plot against MI6 and its chief, Bardem fails to move you in the way that his Anton Chigurh does in No Country for Old Men. He talks too much and laughs too much though I have a hunch his villainous persona will pay off, especially among his fans.

And three, you wonder why James Bond whisks M away to his dilapidated hideout in Scotland with few weapons and improvised booby traps as his only defence against Silva and his men who are, intentionally, put on their tail. You’re thinking, “Bond, you could have taken M anywhere in the world!”

Skyfall may not be the best Bond film ever but it is the best of Daniel Craig’s three Bond films. A terrific entertainer.

VINTAGE PICTURES

The age of Dickens

Dickens by Leslie Ward

In the Literature & Books section of The Booklovers Magazine No.1 Vol.1, January-June 1903, published by The Library Publishing Company, Walnut Street, Philadelphia, USA, Andrew Lang presents a fascinating study on Charles Dickens. Lang (1844–1912), who was a Scottish poet, novelist, literary critic, contributor to the field of anthropology, and best known as a collector of folk and fairy tales (courtesy: Wikipedia), dissects Dickens and his writing with a fine-tooth comb. The article has a few interesting illustrations of the celebrated English writer from Portsmouth. 

Among many things, Lang says...

After the original sketch by "Spy"

"The century in which Dickens lived and wrote has gone where the roses go. He died before young readers now alive were born. His world is not their world ; many conditions of life have altered ; opinions have changed; some manners and customs which he knew are scarcely recognizable. "The great divide" between the age of Dickens and ours is the railway cutting, as Thackeray said. Dickens' first and best novels deal with the old stagecoaches and the life of the road, though he lived to suffer in a great railway accident. Criminals, in Dickens' time, were publicly hanged for the edification or amusement of the crowd. When he visited America for the first time, slavery was a flourishing institution in the Southern States. Any American by reading Martin Chuzzlewit will perceive that, even allowing for wild, exaggerated caricature, the world has changed out of knowledge since the youth of Dickens."

"I have a tenderness. One who is still so happy as to have all of Dickens unread before him had probably better begin with David Copperfield. If he does not enjoy this delightful book, it is likely that he had better abandon his researches into Dickens. The story, as every one knows, is partly autobiographical."

An etching by Theodore Joyeuse

"After Copperfield, Pickwick ought to be read. Dickens never again wrote such a book—nobody has ever written such a book; but some readers may prefer Copperfield, which contains more story and plenty of ' the love interest." After reading these a man may go on with confidence."

Original Pickwick cover with Dickens autograph

BOOK BUYS

Death Lives in the Mansion by Douglas Locke

The dead join forces against the living—Helen Peters stands alone in a world falling apart... 

I have no idea who Douglas Locke is though I'm assuming he is an American writer who has, in fact, written two other novels, The Drawstring and The House of Two Wives. I picked up this 256-page 1967-novel from a secondhand bookstore. It appears to be a thriller set in an old, seemingly haunted, mansion and revolving around Helen Peters and her patient Lyman Harpur who is being murdered before her eyes. Can she save him from his killer whose identity she can only guess? I haven't read the paperback yet though the blurb on the back cover suggests a gripping suspense drama in the big house that echoes with weird voices during the night.

Here's what it says...

"Someone—or something—wanted Lyman Harpur to die...die in agony! Helen Peters watched her patient in his trance and knew that his soul was suffering the torments of the damned...and the medical doctors could do nothing to save him! Their science belonged to the lost world. Yet Helen knew that Lyman Harpur was being murdered vefore her very eyes...and the would-be killer was his wife! But which wife? Was it beautiful Phoebe, current mistress of the mansion in the French quarter of New Orleans—beautiful and vindictive Phoebe? Or was it Celeste, the first Mrs. Harpur—Celeste, who was dead!"

What do you think? Have you heard of this author or read this book?

BOOK REVIEW 

Journey Toward Death (1983) by Amos Aricha

My contribution to Patti Abbott’s Friday’s Forgotten Books over at her blog Pattinase is a suspense novel about the making of the Israeli mafia in America written by a noted Israeli writer.

Mossad’s Nimrod. Tough, brilliant, he is the arrowhead of this treacherous mission, a man marked for death... 

Nimrod Eden is a former commando in the Israeli Defence Forces, who fought during the Yom Kippur War, and is now a freelance agent for Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service, in New York. Nimrod listens to western classical music on his Walkman, while running long distance every morning. He speaks fluent English, seldom carries a gun, and moves around with an attaché case with a tape recorder inside. He seldom records the conversations of sources and suspects without letting them know. Nimrod is soft spoken, often sentimental, and experiences fear like everyone else. He has a habit of patting down his mop of hair and usually has a hint of a smile at the corners of his mouth.

A lieutenant-colonel in the intelligence wing, Nimrod may not seem like the battle-hardened Mossad agent you hear about in spy fiction. But he is every inch the tough and intelligent secret operative you read about in espionage thrillers.

In Journey Toward Death, by Israeli writer and painter Amos Aricha, the secret agent from Manhattan is called upon to investigate the mysterious liaison between an Israeli immigrant David Biton and Arab and North African delegations to the UN, ranging from Egyptians, Iranians, Syrians, Lebanese, Iraqis, Tunisians, and Moroccans.

Mickey Katz, the security chief for the Israeli delegation to the UN, deems it a high-risk security issue and pulls out all stops to get to the bottom of it. He sends in Nimrod whose investigations take him from New York to Los Angeles where he uncovers a sinister trail of conspiracy at the heart of which lies a brutal war for control of the drug market of the entire west coast.

Nimrod soon finds out that Biton’s secret meetings with the UN delegates are linked with his desperate bid to become the new drug kingpin in California. He was earlier the uncrowned king of the Israeli mafia, the Beit Dagan and Bat Yam gangs, and later mastermind of the drug racket in Europe before the powerful West German dealers and the Chinese mob forced him to immigrate to America where he tries to establish a new drug mafia. 

Israeli author Amos Aricha
Photo: www.artphotoisrael.co.il 

His investigations take Nimrod all over Los Angeles, particularly to the Israeli pockets in downtown Hollywood, in the Valley, on Pico Boulevard, and businesses on Fairfax—all Biton’s territory—and right in the midst of a bloody war between Biton and his men and the established mafia families of the west coast, in particular a man called Mike Billeti who controls it all.

Nimrod Eden must get to the bottom of the conspiracy before Biton or Billeti (you don't know who) finally succeeds in their attempts to eliminate him.

This is the first time I have read about Israeli immigrants and the Israeli mafia in America, one of the main reasons why I enjoyed the novel. The other is the presence of the Sakhara, an old woman who claims to have psychic powers and travels all the way from Beit Dagan, Israel, to Los Angeles with her niece, the beautiful Dalith, to prove that Biton, the youngest of her four sons, is not a murderer.

Journey Toward Death moves at a slow pace with very little action in the initial two hundred pages. Aricha’s prose is simple and engaging. The plot is uncomplicated and the narrative weaves in and out of the lives of various Israelis, friends and foes alike, as Nimrod Eden tries to unravel the truth. I picked up the novel because I’d never heard of Amos Aricha before and also because the blurb on the back cover promised high suspense. It lived up to my expectations. 

Amos Aricha is a well-known painter, author and playwright from Israel. His other novels include Hour of the Clown, The Flying Camel, Spymaster, Phoenix and Fenice, the last two he co-authored with Eli Landau. Phoenix is apparently his most famous book.