Royal Gorge

by Peter Dawson

Bourke rode into Canon City after his brother's killer. He then got caught in the crossfire of a vicious railroad war between the Rio Grande and the Santa Fe. The law was after Bourke, the army branded him a deserter, even his woman betrayed him. There was no place to run except right into the killer's camp.

264 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1979

About the author

Peter is the pen name of author Jonathan Hurff Glidden. He was born in Kewanee, Illinois, in 1907, and studied English literature at the University of Illinois. In his career as a Western author, Glidden published sixteen Western novels and over one hundred and twenty short novels and short stories for the magazine market. His first novel, The Crimson Horseshow, won the Dodd, Mead Prize as the 1941 Best Western of the Year. He died in 1957.

Note: "Peter Dawson" was also a pen name used by Frederick Faust (better known another of his pen names, Max Brand). Care should be taken when attributing books.

Reviews

[Josh Hitch · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this one. Dawson, who is the brother of the well known Luke Short, has a style all his own. He seems just to drop you into a story with very little preamble and just catches you up little by little. Which is a fantastic way of telling a story if you are good and he is. In this one a Captain Bourke resigns his commission to find out how his brother died since foul play was hinted at in a letter he received from a doctor. When he arrives into the area he finds out there is a railroad war going on, it seems that his brother may have got caught up in all of the money grabbing surrounding it. Bourke now faces pretty much everybody (including his conniving fiance) when he starts trying to put the pieces together.

Highly recommended, if he isnt a better writer then his much better known brother then he is very close. Not read a bad book or short story from either.