English author DEREK RUTHERFORD has produced a string
of acclaimed westerns. That includes a trio featuring hero Jim Jackson - DEAD MAN’S EYES, DEAD MAN WALKING and DEAD
MAN’S RETURN.
Here’s my 4 star REVIEW of DEAD MAN’S EYES:
Western mystery full of surprises.
Jim Jackson was once an outlaw, renowned for his skill
with a gun. But Jim serves 10 brutalising years in a Texas prison for a murder
he didn’t commit. Now he’s broken in spirit, his self-belief and courage gone,
the town drunk of Parker’s Crossing, New Mexico. But a protection racket are
putting the squeeze on the little settlement. Jim finds himself the unlikely
defender of a community that despises him. He has to re-discover his lost
courage and abilities…
Rutherford’s novel is both mystery and western; a
slow-burner, dependant as much on character as action (so that when action
erupts it’s that more effective) and involving a ghost town littered with
deadly man-traps.
The writing has warmth and charm, the plot’s full of
surprises, and Jackson’s a vulnerable, likeable hero on his torturous journey
to redemption. Recommended.
Ghost towns have been a feature of the United States
almost from the beginning. One of the earliest European settlements in the U.S.,
the British colony at Roanoke in North Carolina, was founded in 1585. According
to Wikipedia, when it was visited by explorers including mapmaker
JOHN WHITE in 1590 Roanoke was deserted. Its 112-121 inhabitants had vanished
without trace. The word ‘CROATOAN’ was
found carved into the palisade, which White interpreted to mean the colonists
had relocated to nearby Croatoan Island.
Despite speculation that the colonists
were massacred by Indians, there was no sign of battle or withdrawal under
duress. There were no human remains or graves reported in the area, suggesting
everyone left alive. Bizarrely, no thorough search was undertaken for them.
The Roanoke locality
Within 15 years reports surfaced of
people with European features in Indian villages not too far away, but no hard
evidence was produced. This might suggest the colonists, having left Roanoke
for mysterious reasons, and feeling abandoned by Britain, simply assimilated
with the local native tribes.
Native peoples of the Roanoke area c.
1590
However, there was a dramatic fate
for the Zwaanendael Colony in Delaware. This became a ghost town when every single
colonist was massacred by Indians in 1632.
Most ghost towns
came about through less violent means. Sometimes it was as simple as when a road or railroad
line failed to follow an expected route or fell out of use. For example thousands
of communities in the northern Great Plains states of Montana, Nebraska, North
Dakota and South Dakota became ghost towns when a rail line failed to
materialize. Hundreds of towns were abandoned when the Interstate highway
system replaced the railroads as the favoured mode of travel.
Some unincorporated towns become ghost towns due to
flooding caused by dam projects that create man–made lakes, such as
Oketeyeconne in Georgia.
Many of the ghost towns that litter
the deserts and mountains of the American West were originally ‘boomtowns’ that
sprang up when minerals such as gold and silver were discovered nearby. But
often the mineral wealth they were based on was soon dug out, or price
collapses made them too expensive to continue as mining centres. Boomtowns often
decreased in size as fast as they initially grew.
Old mining camps that boomed then went bust include Deadwood, South Dakota, Tombstone, Arizona and Virginia City,
Montana. These still survive as active villages, towns and cities. Others –
Bodie, California, Rhyolite, Nevada (the two images below)
and Vulture City, Arizona - exist only as abandoned
buildings or standing ruins, bearing silent witness to vanished, or almost
vanished, populations, lonely testament
to dreams lost and found.
Vulture City
Ghost
towns have featured in many westerns, on both TV and film. Bad guy RICHARD WIDMARK has shoot-outs in them in both ‘Yellow
Sky’ (1948)
and ‘The Law and Jake Wade’ (1958.) (below)
while RANDOLPH SCOTT and ROBERT RYAN (as a villainous and unhistorical Sundance Kid) stalk each other on the deserted streets of an abandoned town in ‘Return of the Bad men.’ (1948)
ROBERT RYAN in
In ‘The Zanti Misfits,’ a memorable episode
of the classic 1960s sci-fi show ‘The
Outer Limits’ an Old West ghost town in the California desert –
appropriately named Morgue - is overrun by some very nasty alien invaders: a horde
of spiders that are highly intelligent, poisonous and homicidal!
OTHER REVIEWS of DEAD
MAN’S EYES:
‘'Wonderful! Even though I don't usually read Westerns, I absolutely loved it!’
‘A good story, well plotted with interesting characters and a rollicking pace… really well written too.’
‘A good story, well plotted with interesting characters and a rollicking pace… really well written too.’
‘Excellent…
A great character-driven Western, plenty of surprises in an action-packed
memorable tale. Will certainly look out for more from this author.’
And on Amazon.co.uk: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dead-Mans-Black-Horse-Western-ebook/dp/B01I3I426I/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=dead+man%27s+eyes+derek+rutherford&qid=1590493240&sr=8-1
You can also find DEAD MAN’S EYES on Amazon.com: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01I3I426I/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_tkin_p1_i4
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