Book Review: Booty for a Badman by Louis L'Amour

My belly was as empty as my prospect hole, and it didn't seem like I had much choice.

When young William Tell Sackett, the eldest of the three Sackett brothers, has no luck panning for gold, he agrees to carry 50 pounds of the yellow metal out of camp and deliver it safely to a bank in Hardyville—for the princely fee of $100. The gold belongs to four miners who trust him. There is just one problem: he must carry it through desert and mountain country over five days. And Tell knows he will not be alone on the treacherous journey. The Cooper gang, who make a living by robbing and killing successful prospectors, will be hot on his trail.  

Unmindful of the dangers ahead, the quiet, honest and tough cowboy packs a horse and rides out with the gold, each pound worth $1,000. He is not overly worried about the Coopers. He can take on the desperadoes, but he is less sure what to do when he encounters Christine Mallory, a pretty woman on the run from her soldier husband and stranded in the middle of nowhere. Disregarding his father Colburn Sackett’s advice to stay clear of women—“They’ll trouble you. Love ’em and leave ’em, that’s the way”—the chivalrous Tell agrees to escort her to Hardyville on the Colorado, even if it means slowing down and putting his life at greater risk.

Then, all of a sudden, the Cooper gang turns up. Here it comes.

Booty for a Badman is a fine Western, told in the engaging, concise, and easy style that is a Louis L'Amour trademark. The author evokes the wild country—the hostile terrain, the dust raised by pursuers in the distance, the campfire and smoke at night—without labouring over detail. Tell is a God-fearing and honourable man, as evident from his gentlemanly treatment of Christine, whom he addresses throughout as “Mrs Mallory.” Yet he cannot help dreaming of settling down with a woman like her and raising a family.

L’Amour also springs a couple of twists that I did not see coming. I was glad of that: the element of surprise is what holds my interest in a story, especially in a Western, a genre that can sometimes move towards a predictable finish. 

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Booty for a Badman was first published in The Saturday Evening Post in July 1960, and was subsequently reprinted in the magazine in 1975 and 1988. It is included in The Collected Short Stories of Louis L’Amour: The Frontier Stories, Volume 1. There are at least four other volumes in the series and, together with his other stories, they add up to more than 250. I read L’Amour—one of the most popular and prolific writers of the last century—after many years, and this story has prompted me to read, and reread, his Sackett series, among other novels. among other novels.

Note: For more Friday's Forgotten Book reviews, visit Todd Mason's blog Sweet Freedom. Todd is doing the FBB honours this Friday in place of Patti Abbott at her blog Pattinase.

The lure of secondhand books in Mumbai

© Prashant C. Trikannad

Secondhand books are a little like antique furniture. They have a musty but pleasing smell, can carry surprising monetary value, and are much sought after by discerning readers and serious collectors. But just as it is not easy to buy old furniture, it is not always simple to get hold of forgotten and out-of-print books. You have to cultivate relationships with used-booksellers, rather like a news reporter nurturing a source for a scoop or a cop working an informant for a tip on an elusive gangster. Once you have a contact or two in the trade, you can sometimes track down almost any title on your wish list.

I remember nearly every secondhand book or comic-book I have bought over the past three decades, and none of them came easily.

Some years ago, I visited a prominent new-bookstore in South Mumbai to pick up a 1995 edition of DC Comics: Sixty Years of the World's Favourite Comic Book Heroes by Les Daniels, the well-known comic-book historian. The 256-page hardback, described as “The complete story of America’s favourite heroes and their talented and dedicated creators”, was on sale for the price of Rs.450 ($9 at the time). Naturally, I was elated. But I resisted the temptation to buy it. I thought the money could be put to better use and walked away. When it comes to books, however, even a devoted reader has to be practical sometimes.

It was just as well.

A couple of weeks later, I spotted a near-mint copy of the same volume at a pavement bookseller in the Fort-Fountain area, the central business district about 7 km from the bookstore. It was wedged between a tightly packed stack of academic journals and coffee-table books.

“It’s yours for Rs 150 (a little over $3),” said the bookseller, who knew his books better than I did.

I offered him Rs 100. We finally settled on Rs 125 ($2.5). It was a bargain I would have been a fool to turn down. Of course, it helped that the bookseller had been a “friend” for many years.

Not long after, I stumbled upon a fine—and, for me, rare—copy of The Penguin Book of Comics by Englishmen George Perry and Alan Aldridge, published in 1967. The 272-page volume chronicles the evolution of British and American comic books. While Perry wrote the text, Aldridge designed the cover and illustrations. The book examines the rise and fall of comics in the mid-20th century, in the wake of Fredric Wertham’s Seduction of the Innocent and the Comics Code, as well as the influence of comic strips and comic books on popular culture and on entertainment such as art, films and television.

Until the mid-1990s, booksellers lined the footpaths in that part of South Mumbai. Today, fewer than a dozen remain, thanks largely to eviction drives by the municipal corporation. Interestingly, the civic officer in charge of one such operation left the booksellers alone even as he went after other hawkers in the area. 

“Books are Saraswati,” he told me at the time, referring to the Hindu goddess of learning and knowledge. “I want people to buy and read books." 

Since the turn of the century, many sellers have abandoned books—which few people seem to be reading, let alone buying—for more lucrative goods such as mobile-phone accessories. Book collectors like me have been the losers.

Secondhand books are not as elusive as one might think. You have to keep your eyes open and know where to look. Sometimes they are right under your nose; at other times, you have to sniff them out like a wolf tracking prey. After years of browsing, I can home in on a wanted title like a heat-seeking missile. All it takes is a quick sweep of stacks upon stacks of pavement books, provided the titles are displayed prominently. With practice, book-spotting can become an art.

Some of the most rewarding secondhand-book haunts in my city of approximately 18 million are raddiwalas. These hole-in-the-wall paper marts, scattered across the island city and its extended suburbs, are more than dusty repositories of old newspapers, plastic bottles and assorted junk. You never know what reading treasures you might find there. A few organised paper marts recognise the value of good books and pass them on to professional booksellers, but most stack them near the entrance and sell them cheaply. 

Like an archaeologist digging for bones, I have been prospecting raddiwalas for well over two decades, and with some success. I once bought a dozen rare Phantom and Mandrake comics, published under the Indrajal imprint, from a paper mart close to my home for Rs 10 each ($0.16)—almost as good as free.

The raddiwala clearly did not know their real value. Bennett Coleman & Co. Ltd, publisher of The Times of India, had stopped printing Indrajal Comics in 1990. Since then, booksellers and individual collectors have quoted obscene figures for these comics, which, apart from Lee Falk’s Phantom and Mandrake, included Indian artist Abid Surti’s hero Bahadur (the Brave), Roy Crane’s Buz Sawyer, Allen Saunders’ Kerry Drake and Mike Nomad, Alex Raymond’s Flash Gordon, Rip Kirby and Phil Corrigan, and Steve Dowling’s Garth.

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Among the other prized books I bought secondhand were Art Spiegelman’s Maus I and Maus II; the 160-page The Science Fiction Book: An Illustrated History by Franz Rottensteiner; a hardback illustrated edition of Futuredays: A Nineteenth-Century Vision of the Year 2000 by Isaac Asimov; Cows of Our Planet: A Far Side Collection by Gary Larson; Sudden paperbacks by British writer Oliver Strange; a hardback of Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra; Calvin and Hobbes volumes; and dozens of DC and Marvel comics, including pocket-size war and western comic-books.

In the age of Amazon and e-books, the secondhand-book trade is slowly dying. Until it does—though I hope it never does—I will continue to look for elusive and priceless fiction and nonfiction. So far, I have been lucky enough to find a few gems every year. The secret to a productive secondhand-book hunt is patience, perseverance and, sometimes, luck—when a wanted title leaps out at you even when you are not looking. Those are the ones I like best.

Book Tag: A Q&A about my reading life

On June 17, my blog friend Tracy did a Book Tag post on her popular blog Bitter Tea and Mystery, answering a series of trivia questions about books and reading. She, in turn, had been inspired by similar book tags on other blogs. I found her version particularly enjoyable, not least because of the sheer variety of books she has read—and continues to read and review—across several genres.

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No reader ever reaches the end of the journey. I still have countless authors to discover, shelves of books waiting to be read, and many years, I hope, before I can look back with any sense of satisfaction. So I'm going to answer these questions honestly. Is there any other way? To adapt a famous line from Kurt Vonnegut's 1961 novel Mother Night—“We are what we read, so we must be careful about what we pretend to read and the books we pretend to talk about.”

Let’s see how it goes.

What book has been on your shelf the longest?

My paternal grandfather's 1965 Tudor edition of Shakespeare: Complete Works (The English Library). I'm saving it for retirement, though I suspect the Bard will have plenty of company by then. Every other year I tell myself I'll finally settle down and read Shakespeare properly. Instead, I end up dusting the cover, the spine and the yellowing pages before placing it carefully back in the cabinet.

What is your current read, last read, and the book you plan to read next?

Current Read: The Midden by British satirical novelist Tom Sharpe (one of my favourite writers) and Shall We Tell the President?, an alternative fiction by Jeffrey Archer, one of several bestselling authors I read in college. I enjoy Sharpe's irreverent wit and outrageous humour. Archer, on the other hand, is an old hand at storytelling. Remember Kane and Abel?

Last Read: Past Tense, where prolific writer-blogger Margot Kinger introduced me to her affable sleuth Joel Williams, a former policeman turned academician.

Next Read: To be honest, I have no idea. My next book is usually a random choice, though I'm tempted to pick up a P.G. Wodehouse or an Agatha Christie from my wife’s collection. It's been a while since I last read either. Wodehouse still has me in splits, even if his humour occasionally follows familiar patterns.

What book do you tell yourself you’ll read, but probably won't?

I'm going to answer this one a little differently.

I struggled through the first 30-odd pages of William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury and nearly gave up. I had little idea what was happening. It remains one of the most challenging books I have attempted in recent years. At times it almost felt as though Faulkner himself was saying, "My narrative style isn't for you. Read something else." I wasn't amused.

What book are you saving for retirement?

Well, as I said, Shakespeare will probably have distinguished company: Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Gogol, Solzhenitsyn, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William L. Shirer, Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche (which I never finished), and a few other classics. Of course, much will depend on my eyesight and state of mind.

Which book character would you switch places with?
 
James Green, better known as Sudden, the Texas outlaw. I've admired the character ever since my paternal uncle introduced me to the eponymous western series when I was 14.

Created by British writer Oliver Strange, Sudden is my favourite Western hero. He earns both his nickname and his notoriety because of his lightning-fast draw, and is branded an outlaw for crimes he never committed. In reality, Green is a gentleman with a gun, defending ordinary folk against crooked gamblers, ranchers, rustlers and land-grabbers, even as he quietly hunts down the two men who killed the man who raised him. Sudden also has a badge—and a secret identity: Deputy Marshal of the United States, reporting directly to the Governor of Arizona.

While Strange, who never once travelled to America, wrote ten Sudden novels, fellow English writer Frederick H. Christian (better known as Frederick Nolan) added another five after Strange's death. You can hardly tell the difference. This remains the only series, in any genre, that I have read more than once.

What book reminds you of a specific place, time or person?

I'm usually so engrossed in a book that I rarely relate its plot, setting or characters to real places or people. It simply doesn't occur to me.

Which book has been with you most places?

Quite a few spiritual books, but mostly Love Never Faileth by the late Indian spiritual teacher and author Eknath Easwaran, who founded the nonprofit Blue Mountain Center of Meditation in California in 1961. This, and most of Easwaran's forty books, offers a practical guide to leading a more fulfilling life through his simple eight-point programme of passage meditation. You can open almost any page and think, "Hey, this is exactly what I needed."

Which book have you reread the most?

The books I have reread most often are philosophical and spiritual, particularly those by Easwaran and other mystics, including my own spiritual preceptor. They have been my comfort zone—my mental prop—for more than three decades.

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What book outside your comfort zone did you end up loving?

Not one, but two: The Mayor of Casterbridge and Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy. I read these powerful classics more than a decade ago on my wife's recommendation. Until then, I had never read an unabridged classic, apart from the abridged versions we encountered in school.

What are your three bookish confessions?
 
1. I collect books. I still own several unread books that I bought in the 1980s and 1990s. Having said that, I have been exercising some restraint. So far this year, I have bought just three books.

2. I will happily miss a bus, train or autorickshaw if I spot secondhand books for sale, even if I end up buying nothing and reaching home late.

3. I never lend books I treasure, such as my Corgi editions of the Sudden novels and my comic-books.

Do you prefer used or brand new books?
 
There is a certain charm about secondhand books, which make up most of my modest collection. This includes over two dozen secondhand—but mint-condition—paperbacks of Don Pendleton’s Mack Bolan: The Executioner. As for new books, I now buy more Kindle editions than paperbacks.

Have you ever seen a movie you liked more than the book?

Perhaps not more than the books themselves, but I thoroughly enjoyed the film adaptations of Jack Higgins' The Eagle Has Landed and A Prayer for the Dying, and Alistair MacLean's The Guns of Navarone, Where Eagles Dare and Ice Station Zebra. I also liked the screen versions of Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird, John Ball’s In the Heat of the Night, and, of course, the Harry Potter films.

Last page: read it first, or wait till the end? 

I've never read the last page first—not even to finish a book sooner—although I was tempted while reading Irving Wallace’s The Second Lady. If you’ve read the book, you’ll know why.

Name a book that you acquired in an interesting way.

DC Comics: Sixty Years of the World's Favorite Comic Book Heroes (Bulfinch, October 1995).

Many years ago, I found this collector's edition at a new bookstore for Rs 450 ($9). I wanted it badly. But wisdom prevailed, and I walked away, convincing myself the money could be put to better use—perhaps on groceries and things like that.

A few days later, while on my way to the office in another part of town, I spotted the very same book at a roadside bookseller. It was in mint condition and priced at just Rs 125 ($2.5). I bought it without a second thought.

Final two questions, my own.

Which authors you wish you had read by now?

Most Indian authors. There is such richness and variety in Indian writing in English that I often wonder why I have neglected it for so long. In hindsight, the focus of my blog should probably have been more desi than Western. I hope to make up for that by reading—and reviewing—more Indian fiction in the years ahead.

If you didn’t read books, what would you be doing?

Probably painting or learning to play a musical instrument. I think it's important to have non-work pursuits among the arts and crafts. Much of everything else is so ordinary.

Bottom line: If these answers reveal anything, I hope it's not how many books I have—or haven't—read, but the kind of reader I am. There are still countless books waiting for me, and that's part of the pleasure. Reading isn't a race. The important thing is simply to keep reading, even if it's one book at a time.

Other notable Book Tag posts
 
Nancy Elin 

Brona's Books

On Bookes

Howling Frog Books

The novels of Jack Higgins: A master storyteller

Jack Higgins (Henry Patterson) is my favourite author. To me, the bestselling British writer ranks among the finest storytellers of his era. Like his compatriot Jeffrey Archer, Higgins made storytelling look effortless, whether he was writing wartime adventures, espionage thrillers or action novels.

Although I have not read all of his 85-odd novels, I have read many of them and look forward to reading the rest. My introduction to Higgins came in the early 1980s with his masterpiece, The Eagle Has Landed. It was followed by Hell Is Too Crowded, The Last Place God Made and A Prayer for the Dying—novels I still remember vividly.

Many of Higgins' protagonists are flawed—former IRA operatives, soldiers, mercenaries or reluctant heroes—who often live by their own moral code. They may not always be your conventional heroes, but they are easy to root for. The kind you want on your side because you know they're good men, almost saint-like, and all very likeable. 

Below are only a few of my favourite Jack Higgins novels. Ask me again tomorrow, however, and I might well replace some of them with Night of the Fox, Toll for the Brave, A Fine Night for Dying or The Keys of Hell. That's the problem—and the pleasure—of choosing favourites from an author whose books I've enjoyed for more than four decades.

Have you read Jack Higgins? If so, which of his novels would make your list?

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In Hell Is Too Crowded, American engineer Matt Brady follows a beautiful, frightened woman home to London after a night out—and wakes up to find her murdered and himself framed for the crime. Imprisoned and desperate, he must break free to clear his name. This is one of Higgins' early thrillers, first published under his real name Henry Patterson. 

Set in 1938 Brazil, The Last Place God Made is the story of down-on-his-luck British pilot Neil Mallory, who teams up with Sam Hannah, a once-legendary WWI fighter pilot now scraping a living running supplies over the Amazon. When a mission station is massacred and two nuns go missing, the two men fly into the deadly heart of the jungle to find them.

Set against the Troubles in Northern Ireland, The Savage Day introduces British agent Simon Vaughan who is sent undercover into a tense, gun-running plot involving IRA factions and a hidden fortune in stolen gold. Betrayal, sectarian violence and shifting allegiances drive this suspense thriller. 

The third in the Nick Miller series, Hell Is Always Today is a police procedural that follows Detective Sergeant Miller hunting "the Rainlover," a serial killer stalking London women on wet nights, while a separate case—an escaped boxer-turned-cat-burglar seeking revenge—runs alongside it.

In A Prayer for the Dying, IRA hitman Martin Fallon, sickened by a botched job that killed a child, flees to London hoping to escape his past—only to be blackmailed by a corrupt undertaker who witnessed his crime. Torn between a priest offering redemption and gangsters demanding one last kill, Fallon is trapped in a moral dilemma.

It Might Have Been by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

I don't usually share posts from my other blog B+ve where I post infrequently. But I thought I'd make an exception with my pithy review of Ella Wheeler Wilcox's poem that I like a lot. It's both inspirational and spiritual. I read a lot of the latter, more as an approach to life. I offer my take at the end of the verse.

We will be what we could be. Do not say,
"It might have been, had not this, or that, or this."
No fate can keep us from the chosen way;
He only might who is.

We will do what we could do. Do not dream
Chance leaves a hero, all uncrowned to grieve.
I hold, all men are greatly what they seem;
He does, who could achieve.

We will climb where we could climb. Tell me not
Of adverse storms that kept thee from the height.
What eagle ever missed the peak he sought?
He always climbs who might.

I do not like the phrase "It might have been!"
It lacks force, and life's best truths perverts:
For I believe we have, and reach, and win,
Whatever our deserts.

© Encyclopedia Britannica

Second Take: “No fate can keep us from the chosen way.” In my opinion, this one line perfectly sums up American author and poet Ella Wheeler Wilcox’s 1917 poem It Might Have Been. Many of us spend our lives dreaming about the things we want to do and the goals we want to achieve. And when we can’t — or choose not to — pursue our dreams, we spend the rest of our lives in regret and feeling sorry for ourselves. We blame our luck or the lack of it; we bemoan our fate for what isn't and what should have been. The truth is we have no one to blame but ourselves. When people with serious difficulties in life can swim against raging currents and climb hostile mountains and taste sweet victory, why can’t the rest of us climb a few rungs of the ladder to reach our destinations? The only way to change It might have been to I made it! is by substituting the proverbial “Impossible” with “I-am-possible”. Then we shall win, and have our deserts too.

Past Tense by Margot Kinberg, 2016

Kramer walked slowly in the direction Stephens had indicated. Then he stopped short. His face drained of colour and he gulped twice. He could see it clearly — a bone sticking up out of the dirt he’d been preparing to move.

It’s not often that the principal character in a work of fiction takes a backseat and allows the secondary players to lead from the front. In Past Tense, Joel Williams, the affable and self-effacing policeman-turned-academician, does just that and still walks away with honours. But then, he's the hero of the novel.

The professor in the Department of Criminal Justice at Tilton, a fictional university in Pennsylvania, hasn’t lost his detective streak as he quietly investigates an old case buried by time and dirt. Construction workers on the campus are stunned when they dig up bones identified as those of Bryan Roades, a 20-year-old student who went missing four decades ago.

As coffee-drinking Tilton police detectives Donna Crandall and her partner Ron Zuniga work on the case with a steadfast resolve, Williams makes his own inquiries into the suspected murder of Roades. Along the way he cooperates with the cops, passing on useful leads that could help solve the riddle—who killed Roades, and why?

Investigations lead the campus sleuth and police detectives to people Roades was associated with 40 years ago. Inspired by journalists Woodward and Bernstein of Watergate fame, Roades was relentlessly pursuing a story on the women’s liberation movement for The Real Story, the Tilton University newspaper. He was trying to interview professors and fellow-students, including women, who were reluctant to talk to him because they didn't want their personal lives and secrets exposed. His fanatical zeal evidently cost him his life.  

The discovery of his remains opens a Pandora’s box, as those who knew Roades back then find themselves in the crosshairs of the investigation. As Williams and the police detectives inch closer to the truth, one of his old women acquaintances is found dead. And suddenly we have two murders, past and present.

Past Tense, the third in Margot Kinberg’s Joel Williams series, is a fine blend of police procedural and campus mystery.

Though Joel Williams greets us from page one, he gets into the thick of the mystery much later. Until then, he reads about it in the Tilton Sentinel over a cup of coffee. I found his character interesting: I don’t think I have read any mystery where a detective or private investigator keeps a low profile and solves the case from the sidelines; in fact, almost as a spectator, it’d seem. However, it’s clear from the start that his interest in the Bryan Roades case is genuine and it has more to do with his previous job as a cop and his passion for solving mysteries, than winning accolades and fans.

The narrative swings back and forth, offering a glimpse into the character of Roades and his relations with people we are familiar with in the present. There are few descriptions and plenty of dialogue, the way I like most fiction. The pace is easy, almost leisurely, but the author keeps the momentum going throughout the course of the 421-page generously-spaced novel. If you’re familiar with writer and blogger Margot Kinberg’s prolific crime-fiction blog Confessions of a Mystery Novelist..., you’ll know what I’m talking about.

Past Tense is engaging and entertaining, and the author, I assume, brings her vast experience as an academician to bear on this campus mystery of a high order. You won't be disappointed.

P.S.: Special thanks to Margot for sending me a signed copy of the book.


Other Reviews of Past Tense

Bitter Tea and Mystery
Clothes in Books
Reactions to Reading
Crimepieces
FictionFan's Book Reviews

On a blog break

I have not blogged for a month and nor have I visited other blogs in recent weeks. Unfortunately for me, that's going to continue for a few more days, probably until early May, as I rush to fulfil personal commitments and finish work-related assignments.

My review of Past Tense by my good friend Margot Kinberg is still pending and I owe her a big apology. The review will be the first thing I'll be posting on my return, though I hope I can do that much earlier. Joel Williams, the former police detective-turned-professor, is a likeable main character in this nice little mystery set on a campus. I enjoyed reading the book. It had a light and easy pace. You can read Margot's guest post about her new book and flash fiction by clicking on the above link.

Meanwhile, I remain active on Facebook and Twitter, as some of you may have noticed, but that's only because I mostly post while waiting for a bus or train or just before turning in for the night. That way I can at least follow what many of you are blogging about.

See you in May.