Ronicky Doone's Treasure

by Max Brand

He waited, however, until the whole cavalcade had moved on. There were now fourteen men besides the girl and her father; evidently the whole Moon band had assembled at the Cosslett cabin during the night. The thirteen were led by one so formidable as lack Moon. It was indeed a Herculean task even to dream of thwarting so many practiced fighters. And yet the eyes of Ronicky Doone gleamed with evil desire, and he caressed the butt of his rifle. Rapid fire might greatly reduce that company, but at the first shot he knew another bullet would be driven into the body of Hugh Dawn.

Genres: Westerns, Fiction

172 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1994

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

[Jeff Tankersley]

Ronicky Doone's Treasure, Max Brand (western)
Jeff Book Review #295

Written in 1922 and published a few times since, "Ronicky Doone's Treasure" starts with our eponymous hero and his horse Lou (a well-written character in her own right, we'll find) sheltering in an abandoned barn when two visitors, unaware he was there, talk about the Jack Moon Gang's plans to murder a local man named Hugh Dawn. Dawn had left the gang ten years prior and they don't like loose ends. Ronicky decides that frontier ethics pretty much demand he try to warn the target that he's going to be killed. At the Dawn homestead he also meets Hugh's daughter Geraldine.

There are so many classic western adventure tale threads in such a concise 250-page paperback; not a sequential series of adventures but all those adventures held in one sequence. There's a rumor about some stolen gold, a gang of thugs, a perfectly manipulative villain in Jack Moon, a good old-fashioned western treasure hunt, some chases, some Mexican standoffs, and for those looking for deeper meaning in the standard western like this you might ask yourself what "treasure" Brand was referencing in the book title.

Verdict: A really fun western and my favorite Max Brand to date. Just a great read.

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