The Lone Gunhawk

by Frank Gruber

Used Western Novel

Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1977

About the author

Librarian note:
There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name

Frank Gruber was an enormously prolific author of pulp fiction. A stalwart contributor to Black Mask magazine, he also wrote novels, producing as many as four a year during the 1940s. His best-known character was Oliver Quade, “the Human Encyclopedia,” whose adventures were collected in Brass Knuckles (1966), and will soon be republished in ebook format as Oliver Quade, the Human Encyclopedia,featuring brand-new material, from MysteriousPress.com, Open Road Integrated Media, and Black Mask magazine.

Reviews

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

It has been 25 or more years since I read a Frank Gruber western, and it makes me wish today’s “modern” western writers wrote in this kind of style. You have your classic lone good guy going up against a bunch of bad guys, there’s a beautiful girl, several shootouts, and things wind up neatly. I really wish these Gruber stories were available in the Kindle format, but the old used pulp paperbacks available here from third-party sellers on Amazon work out fine and bring back a lot of memories of poring through these types of stories when my hair was a lot darker than it is now. If you like traditional, classic westerns, I would recommend this and other Frank Gruber titles.

[Aurora Dimitre · Rating 2 out of 5]

I did have more fun with this one than I would like to admit--plot-wise, it reminds me a little of my cheesy pulpy late-20th century horror, because it is just out there--but, despite the fact that "I have fought Indians and I have fought Mormons" was uttered and the author did use the plural of beef ('beeves') in a sentence that wasn't just saying, "Did you know the plural of beef is beeves", this was not well-written. The characters were pretty flat. Entertaining, but not superb.

[re4yhoi · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. While the characters and dialogue were a bit flat, the plot was fun and the writing was good. Overall a fun, quick read. Good for an easy weekend read.