Destry Rides Again

You can get a collection of 13 Max Brand novels on Kindle, but it won't have Destry in it. I read this 60 years ago and hadn't seen a copy til yesterday in a Colorado supermarket . It's a slickly written pulp revenge western in the melodramatic mode of the Tom Mix, Harry Carey, William S Hart westerns. Tom Mix made a film version, but cleaned up Destry's moral ambiguity. I was curious to re-view it and see if it stood apart from the other Max Brand books as I remembered. It's still a good ripsnorting yarn. It's very straightforward and not burdened by the sentimentality or literary pretensions that mar Faust's earlier work. It's written for the pulp market as a serial, "Twelve Peers," named for the jurymen who falsely convicted a formerly rambunctious town rowdy.

IN 1930, Max Brand (Frederich Faust) was flying high. He was a successful writer with scores of popular stories and novels to his name. "Destry Rides Again" was just another of his products that came to roost in Hollywood. Jimmy Stewart and Marlene Dietrich starred in the film based on this novel that is truly vintage pulp/1930's inspired. Compared to the standards of today, Brand in "Destry" is a hack. The lingo is choppy, and the story is not what movie fans would expect. Essentially, this is a revenge story. Destry goes to jail and returns 6 years later to serve justice to those who put him behind bars. The action is slow, but Harry Destry has time to execute his plan. One by one, his jurors meet their maker, and at longlast, Destry puts down his colts.. Wow. I am a fan of pulp writing and I love this book. Hardcore Brand fans will appreciate this for the history, the art on the cover, and the classic tale that will not die. This could be a Rambo film, or a Terminator movie. But, this is BETTER! Can't wait for the next installment in the Classic Film Collection, Unforgiven. [...]