Donald Hamilton's Mad River

Mad River, published in 1956, is one of the handful of westerns written by Donald Hamilton. Hamilton of course is best known for his spy fiction. He wrote crime fiction as well.

I’ve read several of Hamilton’s Matt Helm spy novels and I consider them to be among the best spy thrillers of their era, or any era for that matter. But I had not read any of his westerns. To be brutally honest I have read almost nothing at all in the western genre even though I’ve developed a great fondness for western movies.

Boyd Cohoon has returned home to the small town of Sombrero in Arizona, after spending five years in the Territorial Prison in Yuma for a stage coach hold-up. There is considerable doubt about the events of the day on which the stage was held up. Boyd confessed, but not everyone believed that his confession was sincere. It was in fact a complicated mess. Boyd is twenty-four years old. When he went to prison he was, by his own admission, a young fool. He has no intention of ending up back in prison, or of ending his life on the end of the rope.

His problem is that there is a matter of revenge to be dealt with. A year earlier his father and brother were murdered. The identity of the murderer seems fairly clear, but Boyd is not going to act hastily. When a man survives five years behind bars he learns not to be a fool, or at least Boyd Cohoon has learnt not to be a fool. He’s not going to risk his life going after a man who just might possibly be innocent.

On his way back to Sombrero after his release he met a girl named Nan. A girl who was obviously less than entirely respectable. She will be starting work as a singer at Miss Bessie’s. Miss Bessie’s is a popular entertainment venue in Sombrero. It is a brothel. Just how non-respectable Nan is is uncertain. Boyd doesn’t care. She seems rather pleasant.

Boyd has a thoroughly respectable girl waiting for him in Sombrero. They’re going to be married. Claire is the daughter of Colonel Paradine. At least Boyd assumed they were going to be married. In fact Claire is about to marry Paul Westerman, the man who might have murdered Boyd’s father and brother.

So at this stage we have what is perhaps as much a noir fiction setup as a setup for a western. Revenge is a standard western theme but this story involves all kinds of betrayals and breakdowns of communication and misunderstandings and suspicions. Most of the characters have questionable pasts. Many are now involved in other shady dealings. The two women are as morally ambiguous as the men. They might even turn out to belong to some extent to the femme fatale category. They could certainly, whether deliberately or accidentally, lead Boyd Cohoon to his doom.

Boyd Cohoon is an interesting hero. Initially he comes across as passive. In fact he’s not at all lacking in courage or fighting about. He’s just careful. He is not interested in revenge at the price of self-destruction. He’s also a guy who, if he decides to fight, likes to choose the time and place.

We end up getting plenty of action and excitement, handled with considerable skill.

There’s a romantic triangle which is particularly effective because it’s not a straightforward choice between the Good Girl and the Bad Girl. The women in this novel are more complicated than that. They do at times get to do brave things but they are not action heroines. They seem like actual women, with convincingly female emotions.

Coming from Donald Hamilton you expect this book to be well written and you expect the plotting to be very competent. Both of these expectations are met. A fine read which has left me wanting to read more westerns and more Donald Hamilton. Highly recommended.

I’ve reviewed quite a few of Hamilton’s truly excellent Matt Helm spy thrillers - Death of a Citizen, Murderers’ Row, The Silencers and The Wrecking Crew.