If there’s such a thing as comic violence in the western, Richard Prosch
is a gentle master of it. There is shooting and fighting enough in his Devil’s Run—and work for the undertaker—but
it’s a story told with a wry and barely suppressed grin.
The central character is Prosch’s “Peregrine,” John Coburn, a gun for
hire who’s taken the job of escorting a man improbably named Tie-Down Sam
Gustaffson, from Missouri to Nebraska, where he is to appear as a witness in a
murder trial.
Family ties, however, produce an obstacle as the two men stop overnight
at a river town called Bindlestick, and for a while it looks like they won’t
make it out alive. They are joined in their attempt to escape by Margo Blaze,
proprietress of the town’s hotel and whose bed was warmed the previous night by
our man Coburn.
Suspense builds as Prosch offers an escape route dating from the days of
the Underground Railroad, but escape itself turns out to be not so easy, even
while the story’s villains are less than competent as adversaries—wherein
lies much of the comedy.
Prosch’s storytelling sensibility is modern and ironic, but there is a
nod to old-fashioned pulp fiction in the cliffhanger endings to most of the
chapters. Novella-length, Devil’s Run
is a swiftly told and breezy read. It is currently available in ebook format at amazon.
BITS reviews of other books by Richard Prosch:
Coming up: Naguib Mahfouz, Karnak Cafe
Glad to see the review. I have this one but haven't had a chance to read it yet.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the nice review, Ron! I'm gonna steal that line about being a gentle master at comic violence! Much obliged.
ReplyDeleteRon, I like the thought of comic element in a western. There is ample scope for that kind of setting, though I have not read any. I have Richard Prosch's "Branham's Due" on my Kindle and I'll be reading it soon this year.
ReplyDeleteI like comedy in westerns or whatever. It enlivens the narrative.
ReplyDelete
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