Whaddayaknow? I finished reading Hour of the Gun by Robert Krepps! It must have set a record of some sort or it was above avearage reading. The movie on which the book is based or vice versa starred James Garner, Jason Robards, Robert Ryan, and I didn't much care for it because of the acting, not that they were not good actors. It was they didn't fit the script, leastways not in my mind, or maybe I was too sloshed to pay much attention, it's been a long time since I saw it.
But the book was good, darn good, and I especially liked the part where Doc Holliday hires the deputies to assist Wyatt in bringing in the Clanton gang. A gambler hiring his old gambling acquaintances, all on the wrong side of the law, now lawmen, looking forward to collecting the reward. What a kick!
And the shootout in the villa was exciting, too, with Clanton getting what's coming to him from W. Earp, who had thought Holliday was dead there, too. It starts out with the OK Corral gunfight and ends up in Mexico at the Clanton Villa where Ike Clanton had moved his cattle stealing operations from Tombstone.
Doc Holliday survives to die in the Denver sanitarium which we all or most of us knew already from the other movies.
I enjoyed reading the book (I enjoy about all of them), and will now move on to another gun novel, By the Gun, written by Richard Matheson, a Berkley Book published in 1994, and if it's as great as the promotional blurbs included, it should be a doozy.
This weekend is the first Boston Book Fair, and a quick glance through the schedule of events is disappointing to western fans, since I saw nothing that represents the western novel nor did I recognize a western author, although I certainly am not familiar with all of them. There are 30 exhibit booths, and a couple of sessions on e-books and digitals, and one session called Thrillers and Killers featuring Stephen Carter, Andre DuBus III, and Joseph Finder, hosted by Jessica Stern, all unknown to me. This is the inaugural of the Fair, so there is lots of opportunity if it continues through the years.
My computer is fine. Memory is about the only thing I can replace in a few minutes without having to call an expert, so I added 1 GB and that should be sufficient for another year or so.
Didn't know there was a book. Sounds worth checking out.
ReplyDeleteOh, yes, it was copyrighted 1967 by Mirisch-Kappa Productions and published by special arrangement with United Artists Corporation. It also says that "All characters in this book are fictional and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental." It is a Fawcett Gold Medal Book.
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