It is the daily struggle of life that blights the lives of Russell’s protagonists. Ill-health and empty wallets are a greater danger than a Cheyenne raid. For Doc Holliday, the enemy is tuberculosis, a cruel, cunning disease that truly consumes him, body and — steadily, stealthily — soul. During a brief period of remission, Doc rides out to the surrounding prairie and experiences an epiphany of what life, during a good spell, can offer.

This article is filed under Books, Fiction Reviews, Historical Fiction, Westerns.

Every Tom Russell song has something to say about the human heart. In each voice he invokes there are universal echoes of love, doubt, weakness, fear, restlessness and faith. The figure of the wanderer – whether soldier, cowboy, nomad, pioneer, outcast or pilgrim – passes again and again through his work.

This article is filed under Africa, Art, Biography, Canada, Mexico, Music, Performing Arts, Westerns, Writers.

If you meet a quiet, rugged kind of a fella with an almost superhuman knowledge of tracking, botany, and the lawful ways of the West, don’t challenge him in a gunfight. You’ll lose. Keep an eye out for smooth-talking, rich, and handsome men. They’re not to be trusted and they never end tidily. But a trim girl with smiling eyes who knows how to ride a horse, be she a reformed prostitute or a rancher’s daughter…well, expect to see her settling down any day now.

This article is filed under Fiction Reviews, Short Stories, Westerns.

Being a serious writer in a time when swill by corrupt business tycoons, politicians and not-funny comics generates advances well into seven figures is difficult, frustrating and at times disheartening.

This article is filed under Fiction Reviews, Westerns.

I’ll begin by saying that I enjoyed immensely the first seven or eight novels in Peter Bowen’s unique Gabriel DuPre detective series.

This article is filed under Fiction Reviews, Westerns.

It’s not a classic in the sense of Casablanca or Citizen Kane, but it’s a kind of cinematic cipher. It opens your eyes to the possibilities still inherent in the Western and shows you its true star. Not a man on a horse or a gunfighter at high noon, but the West itself.

This article is filed under Movies, Movies & TV, Westerns, Writers.