Ace in the Hole

Jim Saddler was down to his last buck in a cathouse in Jackson Hole when the infamous Butch Cassidy and his boys stormed in. The outlaw, looking for a reliable gun, pressed Saddler into joining up.Saddler was in no position to refuse-especially when Cassidy took him along to the gang's impregnable Hole-in-the-Wall hideout. Once there, Saddler found the good side of an awkward situation: the presence of more than a few unattached women eager for attention.But things got too hot too fast. When he wasn't robbing trains, Saddler had to service his share of outlaw women, including Cassidy's girl, the beautiful Etta Place. Then there was 'Mad Dog' Harry Tracy, who forced a showdown with Butch for control of the gang-with Saddler and his women caught right in the line of fire! Gene Curry was a psuedonym used by Peter J. McCurtin - born in Ireland on 15 October 1929, and immigrated to America when he was in his early twenties. Records also confirm that, in 1958, McCurtin co-edited the short-lived (one issue) New York Review with William Atkins. By the early 1960s, he was co-owner of a bookstore in Ogunquit, Maine, and often spent his summers there.McCurtin's first book, Mafioso (1970) was nominated for the prestigious Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award, and filmed in 1973 as The Boss, with Henry Silva. More books in the same vein quickly followed, including Cosa Nostra (1971), Omerta (1972), The Syndicate (1972) and Escape From Devil's Island (1972). 1970 also saw the publication of his first "Carmody" western, Hangtown.Peter McCurtin died in New York on 27 January 1997. His westerns in particular are distinguished by unusual plots with neatly resolved conclusions, well-drawn secondary characters, regular bursts of action and tight, smooth writing. If you haven't already checked him out, you have quite a treat in store.McCurtin also wrote under the name of Jack Slade. Jim Saddler series is told in gritty first-person style of narration that made the Carmody books so distinctive. Of the seven books that comprise Saddler's adventures, however, four are little more than straight re-writes of Carmody novels; A Dirty Way to Die (Tough Bullet), Wildcat Woman (Screaming on the Wire, with Jessie James' daughter replacing Billy the Kid's brother), Colorado Crossing (Hangtown) and Hot as a Pistol (The Killers). Of the rest, Yukon Ride is particularly notable, in that Saddler has to transport the body of a dead judge from the Yukon border to San Francisco, with surprising results..