Dark of the Moon by John Sandford

 

The day looked like the day before, sunny, a touch of wind, about as nice a July day that you could hope for; four kids, two boys and two girls, were dancing along the sidewalk ahead of him, boys in dropped-crotch pants, girls with pierced ears and noses, but there was a small town innocence about it; testing their chops, sometimes, forgetting, they'd hold hands. They all looked back at him a couple of times, knowing him for a cop.

Nice a day as it was, there was too much humidity hanging around, and thunderstorms would be popping by late afternoon. If it got hot enough, some of them could be bad. Nothing to do about it.

Admittedly this is a contemporary crime novel, set in present-day rural Minnesota, yet this novel—the first in a series of Virgil Flowers novels strikes me akin to the Raylan Givens novels of Dutch Leonard and the Longmire novels of Craig Johnson.

And…what I’m going to say may strike some as anathema, as much as I enjoy those other two authors and characters, these just might be the best of the three.

Sandford, a former journalist brings a brisk pace to the proceedings, seems to get all the rural police procedural details eight where many others feel “made up.”

The character of Virgil Flowers is fine company, an affable man who loves hunting and fishing, and the lure of the chase.

Since I’ve found this series, I’ve been whirring through them—the titled volume, the first in the series is a fine one, some of the others I’ve encountered since are even better.

Fans of Raylan and Longmire might find much to admire here.

“The Last Shot” by Frank O’Rourke

 

John Brandon stopped that night in a stand of pines on the last, long slope above the Shovel valley, eating two sandwiches and drinking cold, flat coffee from his canteen. Darkness had settled when he spread one blanket under the pines and lay back, with the soft, grass-sweetened wind stirring the treetops above him, shaking the first dead leaves over his bed. His horse cropped grass with tired dignity about the perimeter of its stake rope. John Brandon thought of his younger brother and replaced this sad memory with the face of another man--the man he hoped to find in the town up this valley and then, forcing body and mind into rest, he slept deeply through the early fall night.

A rare short story from one of my favorite authors in the genre. This story first appeared in a 1949 issue of Esquire magazine.

It is a formulaic tale of revenge, but it is always Mr. O’Rourke’s keen observational eye that elevates.

His feel of the land, his sense of place is reminiscent of Thoreau’s; senses that truly sense, an intellect that grasps these sensations and remembers.

His grasp and feel for people is equally acute.

One feels a craftsman that was alive in the world is at the helm.

Another quill in Mr. O’Rourke’s already full cap.

The Sheepman starring Glenn Ford

 

One of Western writer Brian Garfield’s favorite Westerns, and, I gotta agree with him.

The comic pedigree is prime here. We have the director from Destry Rides Again, George Marshall, one of The Duke’s favorite scribes, James Edward Grant [along with William Bowers,] an able supporting cast of Shirley MacLaine, Leslie Nielsen and Edgar Buchannan, and, of course, a simply superlative Glenn Ford.

I am a dyed-in-the-wool Ford fan—he can play it comic and dramatic.

Here he plays it in the vein of an affable rogue much as we would see James Garner settle into so ably in his Support Your Local films.

A breezy charming film well worth one’s time.

Also note, Ford was an excellent horseman in real life-he sits a saddle well here.

Also, an able gunman, though light on the action we do see enough to remind us, yes, his draw is that smooth.

“Sue Ellen Learns to Dance” by Judy Alter

 

Sue Ellen looked at her children, their faces wary and unsmiling, their clothes soiled with ground-in grime that would not come out no matter how hard she scrubbed, their feet bare and dirty. She sighed and turned back to stare sightlessly at the road before them.

This little heartbreaker won the Spur for Best Short-Story in 1998.

Set in the Depression Era this is a tale of an uncalibrated marriage, that is, one where dispositions do not quite match. When a marriage is well-calibrated, a couple not only endures facing hardship, they often come out the other end stronger and have had happiness along the way despite troubles.

When it is not calibrated, even the best of external circumstances can’t make up for the lack that is at the core of what the uniting was all about in the first place.

Sue Ellen’s marriage is poorly calibrated, and the circumstances are tough.

What is presented is bleak and we all have a taste that all was bleak before and will be bleak after our brief sojourn.

Honest portrayals such as these remind us to value what we have, or, perhaps for some, hold a mirror up to poor calibration and might raise a few questions about the lot of one’s life.

Trackdown “The Town”

To begin, I Looove Robert Culp.

His Columbo guest-murder spots are condescending cool.

Tarantino calls his performance as gunfighter, Thomas Luther Price, in Hannie Caulder one of the coolest of the cool.

I agree.

His turn with Eli Wallach in the little-seen TV-movie A Cold’s Night’s Death is tight Twilight Zone-esque material.

Hell, he’s fantastic at gunplay as the clip shows.

But…I have taken in a handful of episodes from this show, and while Culp is solid, I find I simply see nothing here that elevates this from B-Fare.

The episode in point was written by the mighty Samp Peckinpah, and yet…

A show I want to love.

If you do, I am jealous.

Steele of the Royal Mounted by James Oliver Curwood

 

“If you're starving, why don't you kill the dog?” he asked.

DeBar turned quickly, his white teeth gleaming through his beard.

“Because he's the best friend I've got on earth, or next to the best,” he said warmly. “He's starved with me through thick and thin for ten years. He starved with me, and fought with me, and half died with me, and he's going to live with me as long as I live. Would you eat the flesh of your brother, Steele? He's my brother--the last that your glorious law has left to me. Would you kill him if you were me?”

This 1946 novel was one of several Curwood centered around the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. I’ll admit I went into it expecting a bit of a square read, but I was pleasantly surprised.

It is rife with good Northern scoutcraft and shot through with striking examples of honor and duty and necessity in a harsh landscape.

Admittedly not an A+ read, but an enjoyable one amongst robust characters, nevertheless.

Stoney Burke “The Contenders”

 

I viewed the 1^st episode of this 1962 contemporary Western TV series set in the world of rodeo.

This episode stars Jack Lord as Stoney Burke, our rodeo man in pursuit of the Gold Buckle. Lord handles this role well.

Equally fine are co-stars Bruce Dern and a superlative Warren Oates.

Fans of the Steve McQueen rodeo film Junior Bonner should find much to enjoy here. [For the Record: If not for the miscasting of Robert Preston in Junior Bonner I offer that it might be Steve’s finest performance as a laconic charmer.]

Fans of the original The Outer Limits might be surprised that the creator of that show, Leslie Stevens, is the man behind this rodeo oater.

I must say, based off of this single episode, I’ll dig in for more of this single-season series.

Bonus: They use stock footage of rodeo from the early 60s period and it is RUGGED stuff. You don’t see it like this anymore—these riders don’t even mount up with a mouthpiece, it’s all Cowboy, here.

Old School Fun!