Wednesday 10 January 2018

AUTHOR FAVOURITES: WHILE ANGELS DANCE by RALPH COTTON

RALPH COTTON is not only one of the most prolific western writers, he’s also one of the most successful.

Ralph has written over seventy novels, including THE RANGER SERIES featuring Ranger SAM BURRACK and its spin off THE GUNMAN’S REPUTATION series, also the WEBB’S POSSE series and spin-offs. He’s also continued the DANNY DUGGIN series (about a woman gunfighter disguised as a man), writing as RALPH COMPTON. As well as westerns he’s written contemporary thrillers. And he still finds time to paint, sail, write songs and play guitar! 

Like many authors, Ralph tells me he’s particularly fond of his debut WHILE ANGELS DANCE. The book follows the career of probably the most famous American outlaw band – the JAMES/ YOUNGER gang. The books fictional hero, Jeston Nash, is Jesse James’ cousin and practically his twin, and sides Jesse during the Civil War. But when Jesse turns outlaw post-war, so does Jeston. The novel follows the James Gang through their long and violent career, including their disastrous Northfield, Minnesota raid.

JESSE WOODSON JAMES (1847-1882) is so well-known and his life so full of incident (he once dined with BILLY THE KID!) I’ll only briefly summarise his career. A farm boy born in Clay County, Missouri, he was the son of a former Baptist Preacher. In 1863, whilst the Civil War raged, Union troops tortured Jesse’s step-father almost to death and may have lashed 16 year old Jesse. Next spring Jesse was part of ‘Bloody Bill’ Anderson’s Confederate guerrilla band, alongside his brother FRANK (1843-1915.) He was an adolescent plunged into the savage cauldron of war and forever changed by it.

A young JESSE JAMES

After the war, he couldn’t settle down to law-abiding pursuits, but probably took part in the first daylight armed bank robbery in the United States during peacetime, in Liberty, Missouri in 1866. Over the next 16 years Jesse and Frank robbed trains and banks, killing and stealing, and fought a running war with the Pinkerton’s Detective agency. They often allied with some other Missouri farm boys turned outlaw - the YOUNGER BROTHERS, COLE, JOHN, JIM and BOB.




By 1882 most of the gang had been killed or captured. In that year Jesse himself was slain – shot in the back of the head whilst hanging a picture in his St. Joseph, Missouri home. The murderer was ROBERT FORD, (1862-1892) almost the last of his gang, who betrayed Jesse for the $5,000 bounty on his head.



Robert Ford

One of the notable things about Jesse is that, for a ‘western’ outlaw, he rarely ventured west of Missouri, and sometimes operated as east as Alabama and West Virginia. He was really more a disaffected Confederate raiding in settled country than the product of a lawless frontier.

Jesse has been depicted innumerable times in movies and TV. His son Jesse James Jr. portrayed him in two silent movies in 1921. Since then he’s been portrayed by everyone from pop singer Rick Nelson (in  a 1967 episode of the TV Series ‘Hondo’) to Brad Pitt in ‘The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.’ Other Jesse’s include Roy Rogers, Clayton Moore, Audie Murphy, Robert Wagner, Lee Van Cleef and James Coburn. CHRISTOPHER JONES depicted him in a 1965 TV series.


Christopher Jones as Jesse

Two of the best movies about him are, IMHO, ‘Jesse James’ (1939) where Jesse was portrayed by TYRONE POWER and Frank was played by HENRY FONDA,



Tyrone Power and Henry Fonda 

and ‘The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid’ (1972.) The latter broke the mould in having an actor – ROBERT DUVALL – playing Jesse who actually looked like him!


Robert Duvall (on right) as Jesse

Ralph Cotton hit the ground running with WHILE ANGELS DANCE, which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. The last time I looked 84% of the reviews were 5 star: I also gave it a 5 star review myself on Amazon.co.uk and Goodreads, something I very rarely do. My review:

Authentic, blackly-humorous, wire-taut
Jeston Nash is a teenager from Kentucky who finds himself plunged into the American Civil War at its most hellish – the savage clashes of rival guerrilla bands on the Missouri borderlands. Jeston is almost a twin for his cousin Jesse James – and becomes a member of Jesse’s gang in the turbulent years after the war, including the infamous raid on Northfield, Minnesota and the gang’s decline afterwards. Along the way he meets legendary figures like Cole Younger, Wild Bill Hickok and Wyatt Earp. Cotton is confident enough to sideline some of the more familiar incidents and make this oft-told story his own. He describes farm boys turned into hardened, traumatised killers with absolute unsentimental authority. For these reckless, desperate young men are as much victims of the war as those they slay. Men who march to the beat of the ‘funeral drum’ in their heads and live one jump ahead of a posse, a bullet, or a ‘hemp-waltz.’ The prose is wire-taut, Hemingway-like. When humour intrudes – usually very black and stemming from Jeston’s wildly unpredictable associate ‘Quiet’ Jack - one laughs with relief. So authentic it’s like opening a journal from these momentous times. And fully deserving its nomination for the Pulitzer Prize in fiction.

Other reviewers:

ANGELS DANCE may well be the most spiritual in-depth western novel ever written.’

‘It is easy to laugh, cry, and at times almost bleed right along with his fictional outlaws.’


‘Best account of The James Gang ever written.’

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