Look at Ed Gorman’s GHOST TOWN as a slice of Western noir, which begins as a tale of a man named Bryce searching for his old gang to get his share of the bank robbery that sent him to prison.
We are introduced to Bryce as he enters a town in the midwest, following a lead, having sent his brother Paul ahead of him as sort of a scout. Meanwhile, Paul has come down with malaria and has fallen in love with his doctor. Indeed, Bryce does run into the old gang, whose members seemed to have changed greatly, with one now being the bank president and the other a lackey. He is actually suprised that they give him his share with no arguments. Bryce just can’t believe his good luck … ’til one fateful day, when a gang from Canada robs the bank, killing Paul in the process. This leads to Bryce heading out on the trail to either capture or kill the robbers.
And this is only the first half of the book, folks. From this point, it hits a noir stride that would make people like Mickey Spillane and Donald E. Westlake proud. By the way, the book is dedicated to Westlake, which should have tipped me off. This being my first exposure to Gorman, I loved every second of it. Just expecting a typical Western, I was blown away by how he turns the genre on its ear like some of the Western writing of Elmore Leonard. I’m talking some great scenes of double-crosses and a nice-sized body count. Like some of the revisionist Western films that have come out in recent years, this book does not have a happy ending; it just makes you feel the empathy for the characters to which you have been exposed. –Bruce Grossman
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