The Sun Dance Murders by Peter McCurtin

 

I drove through places you never heard of Flora Vista, Kirkland, Shiprock. There was no air conditioning in the car, and it was at least as hot as hell. At Durgin Springs I stopped to have a look at the wrecked post office. I talked to two of the survivors, both local whites, but there wasn't much they could tell me.

A Neo-Western from 1970. Seems to be a mix of Mickey Spillane transported to Elmore Leonard’s Southwest Mr. Majestyk territory, add some Billy Jack American Indian Movement politics, fake “red man” mysticism and you have a potent mix of some very un-PC seventies era sex, violence, casual racism and beaucoup misogyny.

I can get behind such vibes often—I find S. Craig Zahler’s excesses works of art.

Here, though,…here, while written with brisk craft, the non-stop “I’m a lady-killin’ bad-ass” narrative becomes laborious.

In a short dose, perhaps, but we are expected to follow these adventures for 156 long pages.

Our hero is so damn Manly there is never a doubt that all of the feminine species will throw themselves at him and all males of the species will be intimidated and/or laid low in bursts of violence.

I might have enjoyed this one far more when I was much younger and read the first few Mack Bolans with avid attention.

I am no longer that younger me.

If everything here that turned me off to the book sounds like your cuppa, well, giver ‘er a go.

Not badly written, just too much…way too much.