Review: "I'll never forgive myself if I don't kill him!"
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 02 23, 2014
Spaghetti westerns in both cinematic and literary formats have long been a favorite with readers: they take adventure on a man to man level to the maximum without the need for intervention by aliens or comic book hero types. If my count is correct Van Holt has penned thirty-one gun fighting novels and some critics have termed him the successor to Zane Grey (seems his actual count of books written is around sixty, the others being adventures outside of the Old West). His bio states, ` Holt wrote his first western when he was in high school and sent it to a literary agent but it was rejected for being too long. On a tour of duty as an MP stationed in South Korea Holt nabbed a North Korean spy and had to talk the dimwitted desk sergeant out of letting the guy go. Holt says there hasn't been too much excitement since he got out of the army, unless you count the time he was attacked by two mean young punks and shot one of them in the big toe. Holt believes what we need is punk control, not gun control. After traveling all over the West and Southwest in an aging Pontiac, Van Holt got tired of traveling the day he rolled into Tucson and he has been there ever since, or maybe the next great mystery writer. He likes to write mysteries when he's not too busy writing westerns or eating Twinkies.'Holt has taken on the concept of eBooks and made them ride the range. People seem hungry for these tomes of yesteryear - back in the days before CGI blighted our imagination synapses and we were dependent on fine writers to take us on a trip outside the everyday world in which we live. He knows his way around not only the country of the Wild West but also the conditions of living in that environment in the old days. His characters are not only realistic: they are credible in language, behavior and gunfire! In this relatively short novella  (a terrific starting point for those who have not already fallen under the spell of Van Holt) he Introduces Jim Dexter - a 28-year old out of towner who stops by a pub and resting spot, spies a girl Sandie at the café who brings back some vague memories, encounters the usual punk-like bad guys, watches the handsome but evil villain Claude Brown attempt to dip into the fantasies of the waitress and ingratiate himself by convincing the girl that Dexter is the murderer of her mother - a major error in judgment that begins a series of bloody encounters between Dexter and Claude.As with all of Van Holt's electrifying western adventures, though the stories are compelling, it is his style in recreating that aura of fate and rawness of the yesteryear West that is so satisfying. He has this genre down pat. Grady Harp, February 14