Fool's Gold Book Jacket
The Duke sets the tone
I won't be wronged, I won't be insulted, and I won't be laid a hand on. I don't do these things to other people and I require the same from them.
John Wayne
A real place
Frederick Remington made the American West come alive on canvas.
The West was a harsh, tough, and sometimes violent environment, but a great place for raw justice. Because of the isolation and variable climate, the lack of infrastructure, the individuals who forged a new land and society were hearty men and women who had simple solutions to the human condition.
Clint Eastwood
Simple solutions worked well
Jake McBride is a DA caught in the imperfect justice system of today. Criminals go free and laugh at their accusers. Justice cannot be sought here in the beginning of the 21st century. There is a solution and his name is Mr. Melbourne.
Melbourne offers justice and persuades McBride to accompany him to the Nexus House. From this multi-stroried Victorian house in limbo new dimensions of unknown origins and locations open up.
McBride finds himself back in the old west, repeating Melbourne's mantra: When you're dead, you're dead.
His world as frontier sheriff is a life and death reality, but he now has the chance to attain justice.
Melbourne does not talk to the reader, but has a strong interest in his clients. He has more than the power of his mind and verbal skills. This man can actually arrange a dimensional reality, complete with other people from the real world, and replete with the quest for justice.
You can survive Death Valley if you have water, a car with air conditioning, and lots of gas. The territory traveled by Sheriff Jake McBride is vivid, stark against the dry blue sky. Death Valley at its best.
And volcanic craters make great scenery
Death Valley has a certain beauty in its isolation and quietness.
McBride must not only survive, but kill when he needs to- in the cause of justice. Right is right and wrong is wrong and when you're dead, you're dead.
Fool's Gold
Down the other side in stereo
Il Buono, il brutto, il cattivo
Further Reading
The Oxbow Incident, by Walter Van Tilburg Clark, New American Library, London, 1940
The American Heritage Book of Indians, by William Brandon, Dell Publishing, New York, 1961
The World Rushed In, The California Gold Rush Experience, by J. S. Holliday, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1981
The Great Plains, by Walter Prescott Webb, Grosset and Dunlap, New York, 1931
Hear That Lonesome Whistle Blow, Railroads in the West, Dee Brown, Bantam Books, 1978
The Far Western Frontier, 1830-1960, Ray Allen Billington, Harper Colophon Books, New York, 1956
The Virginian, by Owen Wister, Poplular Library, New York, 1960
The Big Sky, A.B. Guthrie, Jr., Bantam Books, New York, 1975
