I've expressed my enjoyment of Marvin H. Albert's work in several genres before, so it will come as no surprise to anybody that I really liked Rider from Wind River. I liked it a lot. In fact, it's my new favorite Albert western. Why? Because it's only 128 pages long, and it has everything.
Everything? You might think I'm exaggerating, but I'm not. It has a man wrongly accused of murder who's searching for the real killer so he can clear his name. It has a love story. It has a cattle drive. It has a well-drawn setting. It has a stampede. It has one of the best fist-fight scenes I've read in years. It has the expected climactic gun battle, and it's really done well. It has any number of little twists in the plot along the way. It's pure entertainment and highly recommended.
Marvin H. Albert had great pseudonyms. Can you think of a better one than "Nick Quarry" for a writer of hardboiled p.i. novels in the Spillane vein? Okay, maybe you can, but "Nick Quarry" sure is a good one. (Later on, Albert used this for a couple of "In the Tradition of the Godfather" novels for Gold Medal, too.)
The p.i. in this case is Jake Barrow, and a killer is after the daughter of his old war buddy. The killer has just shot Jake's girlfriend in the stomach. He's also shot Jake's buddy, and he's going to kill more before he's done. Jake isn't happy, and he doles out a lot of punishment. He takes a lot, too.
One thing you can count on in nearly every Albert novel, no matter the pseudonym, is an extended chase scene, always well done, always detailed. In this one novel, Barrow is chased into the drain tunnels under New York City. After he gets in, no one's pursuing him, but he still has to find a way out. It takes him fourteen pages to do it. There's another chase at the end of the book, but this one takes place in quite a different setting: Santa Fe. Albert must have enjoyed doing these scenes, and they're always entertaining.
There's a lot of violence in this book. It's the kind of book that blurb writers used to describe by saying, "Out-Spillanes Spillane!" I'm sure you get the idea. There's never a dull moment, and one of the interesting things about it is the basis of the plot. It's very up to date and might have come from last week's headlines. Check it out.
Update: I thought I'd bring Lee Goldberg's comment up here in case some of you don't read the comments. Here it is: Brash Books is bringing back all of the Albert crime novels and thrillers ... Except for Tony Rome. The rights to the Tony Rome novels are held by 20th Century Fox, which is developing a new TV series version. You can find out more about Brash at www.brash-books.com and we've got a Facebook page up with some of our new book covers.
Update: The covers are also on Pinterest. Click here to see them.
