Up until April 2017 I had 2 acclaimed
western novels, THE PEACEMAKER – published
by Sundown Press as a paperback and e.book – and SHADOW MAN published by Crowood Press as an e.book – available to
buy.
Reviews of THE PEACEMAKER:
‘A great book’
Spur award-winning and Pulitzer Prize-nominated author ROBERT VAUGHAN
‘For pure writing style, McBride’s
gritty prose nails the time and place of his story with bold authority. …this
relatively new author has thoroughly, and rightly so, claimed his place among
the top Old West storytellers.’ RALPH COTTON (also a Pulitzer-Prize
nominated novelist.)
SHADOW MAN: ‘A
little masterpiece waiting for you to turn the page.’
Well, now 7 out of 8 of my western novels, (all but CIMARRÓN) which were originally published
as hardbacks and paperbacks have been re-issued as e.books. Five, including SHADOW MAN, have been published by Crowood
Press. The other Crowood Press e.books are CANYON OF THE DEAD,
DEATH WEARS A STAR, DEATH SONG and THE
ARIZONA KID. They too have received acclaim. I’ll be blogging about them
separately over the coming weeks.
Today I discuss THE ARIZONA KID, which was the fourth
of my westerns to be published.
It took me a couple of novels to find my stride and my ‘voice’ as a
novelist. By THE ARIZONA KID I’d
achieved that. I’d found a stripped-down writing style I liked and I was also
lucky enough to stumble into a strong plot idea – basically a character who
betrays those around him when he takes a job just for the money, a Faustian
bargain that causes him personal grief in the long run. As a consequence I
think THE ARIZONA KID is the best
written and most focused – and the best overall – of my first 5 novels.
THE ARIZONA KID BLURB:
When former hired gun, Calvin Taylor, took the job
of sheriff of Oxford County, New Mexico, it was for one reason only – to catch,
or kill, the notorious Arizona Kid, and pick up the fifteen hundred dollars
reward the governor had secretly offered.
Blood money, some called it, and pinning on a
sheriff’s badge set Taylor against the woman in his life and the community in
which he lived. He found himself on the trail of the infamous gang known as the
Regulators, hunting down a man who’d once been his friend.
And as this trail wound deeper into the wilderness,
into the hell-on-earth that was the White Sands, the pursuit became, in every
sense, a journey of death.
All 8 of my westerns are set in the territories of Arizona and New Mexico in the
1870s and 1880s. All feature CALVIN TAYLOR as the central character – former
Indian scout turned man hunter, Wells Fargo agent, Range Detective and
sometimes sheriff.
Anyone familiar with western
history will have no difficulty in recognising THE ARIZONA KID as a fictionalisation of the story of BILLY THE KID
(who once sported the nickname ‘The Arizona Kid’) and his pursuer PAT GARRETT, in eastern and south-eastern New
Mexico in the early 1880s – events including probably the most celebrated gaol
break in western history.
BILLY THE KID vies with JESSE
JAMES for the title of most famous outlaw in the West, and remains a controversial
figure even to this day, partly because a great deal of mystery still surrounds
him. Even his name is still a matter of dispute. Was he really William Bonney?
Or Henry McCarty? Or Henry Antrim? Was he born in New York City, or Missouri?
When he died was he a 21-year-old who’d killed a man for every year of his
life, or a 25-year-old involved in 7 or 8 killings? Was he an illiterate
half-wit, or a man steeped in culture (particularly Mexican culture?)
I consulted various sources about
Billy, from ‘The Authentic Life of Billy
the Kid’ co-written by Pat Garrett and Ash Upson and published only a year
after the kid’s death, to Robert Utley’s ‘Billy
the Kid: A short and violent life’, ‘Pat
Garrett: the story of a lawman’ by Leon Metz and ‘The Western Hero in Myth and Legend’ by Kent Ladd Steckmesser.
Billy has been depicted in
numerous movies over the years, sympathetically and unsympathetically, from BILLY
THE KID (Robert Taylor) to THE KID FROM TEXAS (Audie Murphy) to PAT GARRETT AND
BILLY THE KID (Kris Kristofferson – probably the largest actor to
play Billy, who was noted for his slight size and build) - YOUNG GUNS (Emilio Estevez) and GORE
VIDAL’S BILLY THE KID (Val Kilmer.)
Val Kilmer
A particular favourite of mine is THE
LEFT-HANDED GUN (with Paul Newman) – even though Billy appears not to have been
left-handed!
I haven’t seen Chuck Courtney’s
performance in BILLY THE KID VERSUS DRACULA!
Fictionalisations have also been
done, perhaps most notably in ONE-EYED JACKS, with Marlon Brando in the Billy
role.
Almost as controversial as Billy
was his nemesis, SHERIFF PAT GARRETT (1850- 1908.) Born in Alabama, Garrett was
also a buffalo hunter and Texas Ranger. Standing 6 feet 4 or 5 inches tall he was
nicknamed ‘Juan Largo’ (Long John) by Mexicans.
He’s also been frequently depicted on screen: PAT GARRETT AND BILLY THE
KID (James Coburn) YOUNG
GUNS (Patrick Wayne) THE LEFT-HANDED GUN (John Dehner.) An interesting Garrett
film is FOUR FACES WEST (1948) which for once doesn’t focus on Garrett and
Billy, but another aspect of Garrett's career.
Charles Bickford gives a quality performance in a movie about the
pursuit of an outlaw into the White Sands area of New Mexico (an area of
desolate beauty that also features in THE
ARIZONA KID.)
THE
ARIZONA KID EXTRACT
Calvin Taylor gazed at the ground ahead of
him, studying the rocks and shadows on the slopes under the canyon walls,
seeing nothing amiss. Then he felt the hairs prickle on the back of his neck
and arms; it was only instinct, but it told him that his enemies were behind him. His back felt as wide as a barn door.
He turned in the saddle and the shot came.
The bullet whined past his ear.
His instinct had been right, the shot had come
from behind. He glimpsed over his right shoulder, a dark wisp of powdersmoke!
Taylor yelled. A yell with a lot of fear in
it. He spurred the dun and ducked low as the horse broke into a run.
Another rifle cracked. Off the slope above
him, to the left. His instinct had only been half right, he was caught in a
crossfire!
To find out more, where to buy
etc. see my Amazon author pages, Amazon.com:
And Amazon.co.uk:
REVIEWS OF MY WORK GENERALLY:
‘Tough, taut and elegant…
characterised by assured storytelling… the Calvin Taylor books are quietly
remarkable for their subtle reinvention of the western, eschewing clichés… the
writing is powerfully evocative of time and place.’
Of THE ARIZONA KID: ‘Will delight fans of the well-told tale. The
desert setting leaves your mouth dust dry, the violence is vivid… If McBride's
stories can't bring the western back to life then someone better call an
undertaker.
As I say, I’ll be blogging about
each re-issue separately over the coming weeks. Watch this space!
