Author: Willaim S. Brady (aka Angus Wells and John Harvey)
First Published: 1979
Pages: 128pp
Publisher: Fontana
Sometimes it takes a while for me to know whether or not I am going to like a book. For novels around a 200 page length, that might take up to 50 pages before I'm sure. For even longer books it can be double that. But on very rare occasions, I start to read a book and know literally within a page or two whether I am going to really enjoy it.
I'm happy to report that Hawk: The Sudden Guns was one of those rare occasions. This was a 100% totally satisfying reading experience. The characters, the action, the setting, the atmosphere and the writing style were completely spot on - I bloody loved it.
The only problem I have with it? It's out of print and has no eBook version (that I'm aware of).
The Hawk series ran to fifteen books, published by Fontana in the UK between 1979 and 1983. Most of them sport great cover paintings by the talented Robert Adams (now known as Mike Adams - check out his website over at www.mikeadamsart.co.uk). His art was used for books #1 to #12. The series was written jointly by Angus Wells and John Harvey, which each book alternating between the pair until book #10 when Harvey took over for a while. This might have been so that Wells could concentrate on another Western series for a while. I suspect this may have allowed Wells to write a few installments in the Peacemaker books, which are linked to the Hawk books by a common character (more on that below). Wells and Harvey remained friends for over 30 years. The list of books written by each of them are listed below.
Hawk books written by Angus Wells;
#1 The Sudden Guns
#3 Death's Bounty
#5 Fool's Gold
#7 The Gates of Death
#9 The Widowmaker
#13 Killer's Breed
Hawk books written by John Harvey;
#2 Blood Money
#4 Killing Time
#6 Blood Kin
#8 Desperadoes
#10 Dead Man’s Hand
#11 Sierra Gold
#12 Death and Jack Shade
#14 Border War
#15 Killer!
The Sudden Guns, as can be seen above was written by Angus Wells. Wells was one of the original group of British writers who became known as "The Piccadilly Cowboys" (with Lawrence James, Mike Linaker, Fred Nolan and Kenneth Bulmer). Born in the small town of Bromley, part of the county of Kent in England during 1943, he worked as a publicist and as a science fiction and fantasy editor before starting as a full-time author. As well as writing Westerns, Wells is also known as a fantasy author contributing to the 1970's Raven series and producing series such as the Book of the Kingdoms, Exiles and God Wars in the eighties and nineties. But his input into the British Western genre is comprehensive with significant works in serials such as Breed, Gunslinger, Claw, Lawman, Hawk and Peacemaker - many of which are still highly prized in the genre market and well regarded by readers. John Harvey wrote an obituary to Wells in The Guardian newspaper:
Hawk rides into Modero looking for his prey. He quickly dispatches them and is observed by a local general store owner, Phil Garrett, who approaches him to make an offer of work. He wants Hawk to accompany himself and his neice, Sarah Lee with two friends Willy and Martha Glazer to Los Angeles where Garrett is due to take up part ownership of a large trading company he has inherited from his brother. The only problem is that his brothers' partner, Nathan Bellows, who Garrett suspects is responsible for his sibling's untimely death, wants the whole company for himself and there is a good chance that he has hired gunslingers to make sure that Phil and Sarah Lee never arrive in California. Hawk takes up the job and despite the hostility from Sarah Lee and Martha Glazer leads the group out of Modero determined to ensure that they get to thier journey's end - using whatever means of force it will take.
Wells is great writer, his words flow so easily off the page that you slip into the story within seconds. I love his style of direct story-telling. The character of Hawk is cold-blooded but not without a personality or a sense of humour. Some of the secondary characters like the Glazers don't really get enough time to be more than sterotypes, but that didn't spoil the enormous fun I had reading this book. The action is frequent and bloody, graphic descriptions of the results of scattergun wounds or head shots are peppered throughout and they add a sense of realism to the proceedings.
The plot is pretty straightforward, however Wells also manages to throw in a few surprises that I genuinely didn't expect. So much so that I had to quickly re-read some sequences - I was so surprised I thought I had skipped something.
Wells fleshes out Hawk with some perfectly pitched back-stories. I can't emphasise how good these are weaved into the overall tale. I usually hate it when a book takes me away from the current plot and looks back at past events - but here they are told really well and add so much to the atmosphere being created. I hope this continues into further books.
It is in one of these retrospectives that we are introduced to John T. McLain, a gunslinger who has a significant influence on the younger Jared Hawk. They spend a significant amount of time working together and the episode bleeds into events at the beginning of Chapter 1. McLain is also the character that ties Hawk to Peacemaker, as McLain is the central character of this other "William S. Brady" series.
Angus Wells is not currently on the roster of authors that have been reprinted by Piccadilly Publishing, but John Harvey is. I can only surmise that there is an issue with the Wells' estate in getting his work, and those he collaborated on, especially with Harvey, republished. This is a great shame because if The Sudden Guns is typical of Wells' output the greater reading public are missing out on treat.
Very highly recommended. A wonderful read. I enjoyed this so much that I have immeadiately picked up the first Peacemaker book to get some more of Angus Wells.
Publisher: Fontana
Sometimes it takes a while for me to know whether or not I am going to like a book. For novels around a 200 page length, that might take up to 50 pages before I'm sure. For even longer books it can be double that. But on very rare occasions, I start to read a book and know literally within a page or two whether I am going to really enjoy it.
I'm happy to report that Hawk: The Sudden Guns was one of those rare occasions. This was a 100% totally satisfying reading experience. The characters, the action, the setting, the atmosphere and the writing style were completely spot on - I bloody loved it.
The only problem I have with it? It's out of print and has no eBook version (that I'm aware of).
The Hawk series ran to fifteen books, published by Fontana in the UK between 1979 and 1983. Most of them sport great cover paintings by the talented Robert Adams (now known as Mike Adams - check out his website over at www.mikeadamsart.co.uk). His art was used for books #1 to #12. The series was written jointly by Angus Wells and John Harvey, which each book alternating between the pair until book #10 when Harvey took over for a while. This might have been so that Wells could concentrate on another Western series for a while. I suspect this may have allowed Wells to write a few installments in the Peacemaker books, which are linked to the Hawk books by a common character (more on that below). Wells and Harvey remained friends for over 30 years. The list of books written by each of them are listed below.
Hawk books written by Angus Wells;
#1 The Sudden Guns
#3 Death's Bounty
#5 Fool's Gold
#7 The Gates of Death
#9 The Widowmaker
#13 Killer's Breed
Hawk books written by John Harvey;
#2 Blood Money
#4 Killing Time
#6 Blood Kin
#8 Desperadoes
#10 Dead Man’s Hand
#11 Sierra Gold
#12 Death and Jack Shade
#14 Border War
#15 Killer!
The Sudden Guns, as can be seen above was written by Angus Wells. Wells was one of the original group of British writers who became known as "The Piccadilly Cowboys" (with Lawrence James, Mike Linaker, Fred Nolan and Kenneth Bulmer). Born in the small town of Bromley, part of the county of Kent in England during 1943, he worked as a publicist and as a science fiction and fantasy editor before starting as a full-time author. As well as writing Westerns, Wells is also known as a fantasy author contributing to the 1970's Raven series and producing series such as the Book of the Kingdoms, Exiles and God Wars in the eighties and nineties. But his input into the British Western genre is comprehensive with significant works in serials such as Breed, Gunslinger, Claw, Lawman, Hawk and Peacemaker - many of which are still highly prized in the genre market and well regarded by readers. John Harvey wrote an obituary to Wells in The Guardian newspaper:
A love, and near encyclopedic knowledge, of western movies - in particular those of Sam Peckinpah - helped to make Angus well suited to the task. He was as inventive and hardworking as was necessary to produce 50,000 words every four or five weeks, and in those books we wrote together, he could be relied upon to correct not just my faulty knowledge of guns and ammo, but my spelling of sheriff and marshal.
...Angus learned to read - and, I suspect, developed an early feeling for narrative - among the comics and paperback books that crowded the newsagent's shop run by his parents.The story of The Sudden Guns serves as the introduction to the character of Jared Hawk. This is a man with a distinctive look. He is dressed mainly in black with a low-crowned hat, a black glove on his left hand, and comes armed with a Colt .45 Frontier handgun and a single-barrel 10-gauge Meteor scattergun with its' barrel sawn-down and its' stock carved down to form a pistol grip. There is no mistaking he is a gun for hire, the sort of man who earns respect as soon as he walks into a saloon.
Hawk rides into Modero looking for his prey. He quickly dispatches them and is observed by a local general store owner, Phil Garrett, who approaches him to make an offer of work. He wants Hawk to accompany himself and his neice, Sarah Lee with two friends Willy and Martha Glazer to Los Angeles where Garrett is due to take up part ownership of a large trading company he has inherited from his brother. The only problem is that his brothers' partner, Nathan Bellows, who Garrett suspects is responsible for his sibling's untimely death, wants the whole company for himself and there is a good chance that he has hired gunslingers to make sure that Phil and Sarah Lee never arrive in California. Hawk takes up the job and despite the hostility from Sarah Lee and Martha Glazer leads the group out of Modero determined to ensure that they get to thier journey's end - using whatever means of force it will take.
Wells is great writer, his words flow so easily off the page that you slip into the story within seconds. I love his style of direct story-telling. The character of Hawk is cold-blooded but not without a personality or a sense of humour. Some of the secondary characters like the Glazers don't really get enough time to be more than sterotypes, but that didn't spoil the enormous fun I had reading this book. The action is frequent and bloody, graphic descriptions of the results of scattergun wounds or head shots are peppered throughout and they add a sense of realism to the proceedings.
The plot is pretty straightforward, however Wells also manages to throw in a few surprises that I genuinely didn't expect. So much so that I had to quickly re-read some sequences - I was so surprised I thought I had skipped something.
Wells fleshes out Hawk with some perfectly pitched back-stories. I can't emphasise how good these are weaved into the overall tale. I usually hate it when a book takes me away from the current plot and looks back at past events - but here they are told really well and add so much to the atmosphere being created. I hope this continues into further books.
It is in one of these retrospectives that we are introduced to John T. McLain, a gunslinger who has a significant influence on the younger Jared Hawk. They spend a significant amount of time working together and the episode bleeds into events at the beginning of Chapter 1. McLain is also the character that ties Hawk to Peacemaker, as McLain is the central character of this other "William S. Brady" series.
Angus Wells is not currently on the roster of authors that have been reprinted by Piccadilly Publishing, but John Harvey is. I can only surmise that there is an issue with the Wells' estate in getting his work, and those he collaborated on, especially with Harvey, republished. This is a great shame because if The Sudden Guns is typical of Wells' output the greater reading public are missing out on treat.
Very highly recommended. A wonderful read. I enjoyed this so much that I have immeadiately picked up the first Peacemaker book to get some more of Angus Wells.
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