New
Mexico’s Johnny Boggs is his generation’s Louis l’Amour. Some like him
better. Either way he’s in the all-time front rank of western novelists. If
Hollywood still knew how to make a real western, we’d know him a lot better.
His latest effort combines the art of the novelist with the knowledge of the
real historian.
You’ll
catch snatches of L’Amour, Elmore Leonard, and a little of the great Cotton
Smith in this admitted conversion of WHITE HEAT into 1880’s Arizona. Boggs
alsoknows about the real west and that there was more than
1873 Colts and Winchesters out here. In this one the hero carries the obscure
Evans rifle. He’s also aware that frontier women did a lot more than tell
Matt Dillon to be careful. His characters are believable because his bad guys
are just a bit good and his good guys a little bad.
Canadian
Ted Meyers adds one more piece of decent scholarship to Earpomania with a
biography of Wyatt’s “secret second wife”. Meyers doggedly chased down
court records and proved that Wyatt and Morgan Earp were busted in Illinois
for running hookers, one of which was Wyatt’s common law wife Mattie. Dumped
much later in Tombstone for the younger and more respectable Josephine Sarah
Marcus, it was Josie who wanted no mention of Wyatt’s early life or her own
living with Cochise County Sheriff John Behan.
Mattie
died an apparent suicide working as prostitute in Pinal, AZ in 1888 lonely and
forgotten. Meyers gives us a fine supplement to the Earp saga.
PANCHO
VILLA by Ben F. Williams Jr. PB Smokin Z Press, Tucson
Former
Douglas Mayor Ben Williams lets you know which way he stands on the subject of
this combination biography and family memoir by the subtitle – “A lifetime
of Vengeance”. Williams family has lived and ranched in Southern Arizona and
Northern Mexico since the late 19th Century and his family had
personal encounters with Villa.
Those
combined with considerable research on both sides of the border will lead any
objective observer to the same conclusion Williams gives – Doroteo Arango
AKA Pancho Villa was a thug.
Like
Che Guevera, Villa has improved his image over the years with naïve armchair
revolutionaries who fail to notice that both were sociopaths who personally
enjoyed executing folks themselves. Biggest difference was that Villa was a
more competent guerilla fighter, one of the many things you will discover in
Williams well written book.
At
some point you will probably ask why we have a statute of this gangster in the
center of downtown Tucson.
DEATH
CLOUDS ON MT BALDY by Cathy Hufault PB 2011 Arizona Mountain Publications, www.arizonamtn.com
In
November of 1958, a rare Arctic blizzard hit southern Arizona. Many suffered
inconvenience, others much more. It trapped six Boy Scouts
on Mt. Baldy. After a massive rescue effort, three ultimately survived, one of
them the author’s brother. Three didn’t. This is the poignantly written
and compelling story of that tragedy by someone who was a young observer of
it.
Cathy
Hufault served as Mayor of Oro Valley in the 1980’s and now resides in Vail.
She tells a personal story ably and adds another chapter to our local history.
