Longarm

Rating:
Summary: A fun read to kick off a very long series.
Review: The idea of western novels as simple entertainment is something that's fallen somewhat out of favor over the last couple of decades. The pure storytelling of Zane Grey and Louis L'Amour has given way to the more literary stylings of authors like Larry McMurtry, and while this isn't necessarily a bad thing, there's something to be said about the loss of the straightforward, six-shootin' western yarn.

Written under the house name of Tabor Evans, the LONGARM series of western novels has been around since 1976, with a new addition to the library moseying along every month or so. Relating the adventures of US Marshal Custis Long, these books are not intended to be anything other than sheer, throwaway fun. They're packed with violence, good humor and not a little helping of reasonably explicit sex.

This first installment in the series, simply titled LONGARM, sets the stage for the literally hundreds of books to follow. We're introduced to Marshal Long as he heads to Wyoming to collect a wanted fugitive from the custody of a local vigilance committee. The job seems straightforward, but one US Marshal has already disappeared on the same assignment, and with the tiny Wyoming berg cut off from communication up in the high country, there's no telling what's happened to him.

LONGARM, like every other book in the run, reads something like a mystery with action-adventure elements included. Marshal Long encounters a large cast of sometimes eccentric characters during his assignment, including a midget gunslick and a Canadian Mountie(!), and every one of these folks has a reason to want a piece of Long's prisoner. Longarm must use his brain as often as his six-shooter if he wants to get out of his current situation in one piece. And questions keep popping up. Is the prisoner really who he's supposed to be, or are his claims of innocence for real? Who killed the other US Marshal who came to town? How can a collection of four different lawmen lay claim to the same prisoner?

Along with a generous helping of intrigue and gunplay, LONGARM also features plenty of sex. During the course of the book, Longarm beds down with no fewer than five different women, and "Tabor Evans" doesn't stop writing when the bedroom door swings shut. Though the adult action in LONGARM is nowhere near as explicit as one might find in a novel of Blue Moon erotica, or even in some of the hotter Harlequin Blaze volumes, it's raunchy enough to get the blood flowing and is a signature of the series as a whole.

For the first in a long-running series, LONGARM is a solid read. The ending, where Longarm assembles the cast and makes a big courtroom reveal worthy of Perry Mason, may be a little too much like an Agatha Christie drawing room mystery, but the there's enough of interest going on in the book that the read is worthwhile. Longarm is a likeable, though sometimes insufferably arrogant, hero who's quick on the draw and smart as a whip. Because he doesn't even clue in the reader as to what's going on inside his head, trying to figure out where Longarm's going with his latest brainstorm is half the fun.

LONGARM isn't a work for the ages, but it gets the job done. And that's quite all right.

Rating:
Summary: A fun read to kick off a very long series.
Review: The idea of western novels as simple entertainment is something that's fallen somewhat out of favor over the last couple of decades. The pure storytelling of Zane Grey and Louis L'Amour has given way to the more literary stylings of authors like Larry McMurtry, and while this isn't necessarily a bad thing, there's something to be said about the loss of the straightforward, six-shootin' western yarn.

Written under the house name of Tabor Evans, the LONGARM series of western novels has been around since 1976, with a new addition to the library moseying along every month or so. Relating the adventures of US Marshal Custis Long, these books are not intended to be anything other than sheer, throwaway fun. They're packed with violence, good humor and not a little helping of reasonably explicit sex.

This first installment in the series, simply titled LONGARM, sets the stage for the literally hundreds of books to follow. We're introduced to Marshal Long as he heads to Wyoming to collect a wanted fugitive from the custody of a local vigilance committee. The job seems straightforward, but one US Marshal has already disappeared on the same assignment, and with the tiny Wyoming berg cut off from communication up in the high country, there's no telling what's happened to him.

LONGARM, like every other book in the run, reads something like a mystery with action-adventure elements included. Marshal Long encounters a large cast of sometimes eccentric characters during his assignment, including a midget gunslick and a Canadian Mountie(!), and every one of these folks has a reason to want a piece of Long's prisoner. Longarm must use his brain as often as his six-shooter if he wants to get out of his current situation in one piece. And questions keep popping up. Is the prisoner really who he's supposed to be, or are his claims of innocence for real? Who killed the other US Marshal who came to town? How can a collection of four different lawmen lay claim to the same prisoner?

Along with a generous helping of intrigue and gunplay, LONGARM also features plenty of sex. During the course of the book, Longarm beds down with no fewer than five different women, and "Tabor Evans" doesn't stop writing when the bedroom door swings shut. Though the adult action in LONGARM is nowhere near as explicit as one might find in a novel of Blue Moon erotica, or even in some of the hotter Harlequin Blaze volumes, it's raunchy enough to get the blood flowing and is a signature of the series as a whole.

For the first in a long-running series, LONGARM is a solid read. The ending, where Longarm assembles the cast and makes a big courtroom reveal worthy of Perry Mason, may be a little too much like an Agatha Christie drawing room mystery, but the there's enough of interest going on in the book that the read is worthwhile. Longarm is a likeable, though sometimes insufferably arrogant, hero who's quick on the draw and smart as a whip. Because he doesn't even clue in the reader as to what's going on inside his head, trying to figure out where Longarm's going with his latest brainstorm is half the fun.

LONGARM isn't a work for the ages, but it gets the job done. And that's quite all right.