Dead or Alive

by Max Brand, Frederick Schiller Faust

Dead or Alive by Max Band

Genres: Westerns

222 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1971

About the author

Frederick Schiller Faust (see also Frederick Faust), aka Frank Austin, George Owen Baxter, Walter C. Butler, George Challis, Evin Evan, Evan Evans, Frederick Faust, John Frederick, Frederick Frost, David Manning, Peter Henry Morland, Lee Bolt, Peter Dawson, Martin Dexter, Dennis Lawson, M.B., Hugh Owen, Nicholas Silver

Max Brand, one of America's most popular and prolific novelists and author of such enduring works as Destry Rides Again and the Doctor Kildare stories, died on the Italian front in 1944.

Reviews

[David B]

Young cowpuncher Nelly Grey agrees to back up a friend who has gotten on the bad side of a violent man and gets mixed up in a whirlwind of murder charges, jailbreaks, and outlaws. Fortunately, a mysterious, capable oddball named Lanky is on hand, by turns rescuing Nelly but also pushing him into ever more dangerous situations. This is an exciting Western with an engaging lead character and some interesting reversals. Nelly is a good first-person narrator, young and vulnerable but brave, indignant at the twists that fate has thrown him but bemused by the absurdity of it all. A rather substantial flaw is that he spends so much time understandably wondering just who Lanky is and why he has concerned himself with Nelly’s well-being that it seems that author Frost (writing as Max Brand) is setting the stage for some revelations about Lanky that never come. This was a big disappointment, but the novel satisfies in all other respects.

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[Chris]

A rip snortin' hoot! Nelson is a cowpuncher who is "volunteered" to be a second in a duel, but things go against him and he finds himself on the run. Nels is aided by the loquacious, vagabond, sharp shooter and all around good guy - Lanky - who has been everywhere that doesn't require him to work too hard. Lots of action, a touch of romance, twists and turns, crafty villians and the smell of gunpowder make this an excellent read.

[William]

Brand can spin a yarn about human nature as well as Twain and as deep as Conrad while using the most poignant of English. Probably not to be a favorite of post modern english speaking folk because it shows language as it ought to be written. His stories are complex and suspenseful.

[David Braly]

Great book. A lot of action.