Gunfighter Jory -- Milton Bass

Okay, don't ask me why the title's not Gunfightr Jory. You'd think it might be, since it follows Mistr Jory and Sherrf Jory. Anyway, it's the fourth and (as far as I know) final book about the character. The first two, Jory and the aforementioned Mistr Jory, were published about 20 years before the final two. Somehow, though, I got the feeling that all the books might have been written around the same time. There's a scene in Gunfighter Jory that seems very 1960s to me. Maybe the first two didn't sell as well as expected, so the last ones came out in paperback much later.

But I digress. In Sherrf Jory, as you may (or may not) recall, Jory becomes sheriff of Barronville and cleans up the town. It's now so clean that Jory's getting bored, and then along come some men from the town council of nearby Leesville. They say that since Jory is sheriff of the whole county, he can't just stay in Barronville. He has to clean up Leesville, too.

Jory agrees to check out Leesville, for a fee, and when he and his deputy, Andy, arrive, they find that the former town marshal, Bart Butler, has put a line of bricks across the main street and seceeded from the rest of the town. Since he owns the only saloon and hotel, he's doing pretty well for himself, and his income is supplemented by the outlaw gang living in his hotel.

Jory gets romantically involved with a woman named Maebeth, and Andy falls for Butler. There's sex, there's drugs (I told you there was a very '60s scene), but there's no rock and roll. There are, however, a piano and a trombone.

This isn't a standard powder-burner, though it has all the elements. I liked it, and I'm sorry there are no more Jory books for me to read. Bass left plenty of threads dangling at the end of this one, and I'd like to know what happened to Jory, to Andy, and to the other two women who are after Jory. I guess I never will, though.