Black Signal

by Max Brand, Frederick Schiller Faust

Although he had cleared the town of dangerous drifters, Lew Melody is shunned by respectable people, and, forced to break a promise to the woman he loves, he must ride an outlaw's trail

Genres: Westerns

172 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1925

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

[Michael P. · Rating 3 out of 5]

What a lovely book. It is a love story set in the west, the story of a violent man and the woman he loved enough to change himself so that could become worthy of her. It is the story of the forces that conspired to prevent that change, nearly ending in tragedy. It has passages of beautiful writing, especially near the start, and one important plot point so improbable that it robbed this review of a fourth star.

[Jeff Tankersley · Rating 4 out of 5]

"In the meantime, danger gathered about the head of Lew Melody, but in a new form. I have said that he made no trouble in wrong directions. Whatever were the exploits of Lew, they were performed at the expense of scoundrels who were better off the earth than on it; I have quoted already the opinion of the sheriff, and this opinion was not exaggerated, I am convinced. But the tragedy began, as you will half suspect, with the face of a pretty girl."

Told first-person from the perspective of a town's pastor, "The Black Signal" (1925) is a Max Brand offering in which the protagonist, one tried and true tough guy named Lewis Melody, after clearing out some outlaw riff-raff, gives up gunplay and gambling for good so that he can find a wife and settle down with the town's respect instead of fear. He has feelings for a local Mexican girl but sets his sights on the town's darling Sandy, who immediately falls in love with him.

Unfortunately, in an attempt to prove his now-peaceful ways, Lew promises that he won't be involved in a violent encounter for at least the twenty days before their wedding, while his love interest Sandy promises the well-meaning but stupid pastor that she'll never see Lew again if he breaks that promise. Well, sure enough, a local rich kid with designs on Sandy pays a thug to fight Lew and scare Sandy, so Lew responds with violence and has to leave town. A similar number of tragic circumstances follows as our hero Lew looks to clear his name but also reluctantly accept the bare minimum outlawry to stay alive, while keeping out ahead of the posse on his tail, and the Mexican girl is never out of the picture, willing to help him if she can.

Verdict: Kind of sounds like the bones of a Shakespearian or Jane Austinian or Grey's Anatomyish romance plot, no? There's a love triangle with this protagonist Lewis Melody trying to decide between courting the girl he likes or the girl who would do anything for him, and well-intentioned promises coming back to bite them in a love versus honor confrontation. I'm making light; this is all western, and some of it western romance, but Brand is smart with his plot points and action sequences and this is a really good old western.

Jeff's Rating: 4 / 5 (Very Good)
movie rating if made into a movie: PG

[Cws]

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