West of Nowhere

This is a collection of 13 stories of varying lengths (four pages up) by the author of The Searchers (Leisure Western) and The Unforgiven, all published in the pulp magazines in 1925-39. Some, like "Death Rides the Trionte," are clearly set in the classic frontier West; others take place more or less contemporaneously, like the three Whiskers Beck stories ("The Killer in the Chute," "The Fourth Man," "Terlegraphy and the Bronc'"). One, the title story, isn't even a Western at all, except inasmuch as it takes place in (and over) the Western states sometime in the 1930's; it's the story of an air race, an offshoot of the author's deep interest in small-craft flying, as described by his son in the Foreword. Some, like "Trionte" and "Six-Gun Graduate," are serious adventure fiction, but several are semi- (or, like "Mules," even wholly) humorous--and very well done, too. Of the 13, I marked seven for future rereading, well beyond the one-third figure at which I consider a collection or anthology successful. If you've read LeMay's longer and more mature pieces and are curious about how he started, these stories will give you a good idea, and they're enjoyable on their own terms as well.