Screaming on the Wire

Riding north from Sonora to hire out his gun, Carmody didn't quite know what the trouble was about-and didn't give a damn. The money was good and it looked like it was going to be a nice dirty old-fashioned range war. That's what Carmody thought, but that was before he saved the runty kid's life. After that things began to get complicated-and murderous. Tex McCarty was the little killer's name, and he was a whole mess of trouble in one small man. He brought death to everything he touched, and the more Carmody thought about it, the more he knew there was only one cure for a man like that. Peter J. McCurtin was 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 and Gene Curry. Carmody is, on the surface at least, just another trail-wise adventurer. Sometimes he is presented as an outlaw, sometimes as a gun-for-hire. Whatever his current occupation, however, Carmody's eye is always on the main chance, as Peter McCurtin's tough, spare narrative frequently makes plain.