Review: Van Holt and Filling the Desire for Evergreen Westerns
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 03 13, 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-six 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. Holt's stories keep rolling and while we would expect there to be some repetition in themes or in characters the novels continue to be fresh. His characters are not only realistic: they are credible in language, behavior and gunfire!Buck Hayden and Frank Martin were mustangers (the dictionary defines `mustanger' as `one who rounds up wild horses on the open range and sells them esp. for horsemeat'). With the focused need and urge to simply hunt wild horses in wild country the two man selected the wildest part of Nevada, found housing is a deserted old shack on the mesa, also the home of a magnificent wild stallion and a band of wild horses. Trouble comes to their paradise in the guise of one King Hoffer who moves with the intent of ruling the entire countryside. In Buck Hayden's absence Hoffer's entourage either killed Frank Martin or chased him out of the country. Hayden returns, discovers the work of Hoffer and Hoffer elects to dispense with Hayden as well. With the help of a greenhorn who had always wanted to be a cowboy and a gunfighter, Hayden makes war on cattle King Hoffer and miscreants. It is kill or be killed and the manner in which the story plays out should feed the lovers of Van Holt's mastery of the novels about that particular way of life of yesteryear's Wild West. Another triumph from Van Holt. Grady Harp, March 14