This one was a no-brainer: I love Westerns, and I love Mickey Spillane. Together? Yes please! I thoroughly enjoyed it, even if it was predictable: a bad sheriff has taken over the town of Trinidad, New Mexico. Sheriff Gauge has bullied and bought out most of the small ranchers in the area, with old blind Cullen one of the lone holdouts. Gauge is hankering after Cullen's daughter, Willa, too. Cullen sends off a telegram to a friend of his, asking him to send help in the form of a hired killer to off Gauge. He wants Caleb York, but is told that York was killed in a gunfight. The next day a stranger rides into town, refusing to give anyone his name. He is kicking ass, though, and everyone assumes it's the killer Cullen's friend sent. Like I said, predictable, but very fun nonetheless.
Murry Falkner was Bill's little brother (unlike big brother, he never put the "u" in his last name). It was a sweet memoir of a lifestyle no one lives any longer: boys playing barefoot in the dirt in the summer, watching airplanes and trains with fascination, building machines out in the shed, a simpler time. After seeing Bill's home in Oxford last year, it was lovely to read Murry's description of it. All the brothers shared a love of flying and Murry had a pretty interesting life of his own: he worked for the FBI, fought in WWI and WWII, met his wife in Africa, flew planes all over, in Alaska, in California. He sounds like he was a fun individual. I never lived in those times (he died before I was born), but reading things like this makes me dearly wish I had.
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