Great news from Kensington Books that my next two Joe Noose Western novels, BRANDED and THE CRIMSON TRAIL, will both will be released in audiobook editions, joining the first two in the series, NOOSE and HANGING FIRE, for those of you folks who prefer to listen to books.
The Western, I believe, is the ultimate genre.
The epic nomenclature of tough, strong cowboys in big hats with guns and horses pitted in physical and psychological contests of good versus evil fought on rugged frontier landscapes that externally mirror their own jagged internal natures is mythic and timeless. But while the entire world loves westerns, the U.S. owns the brand, and westerns remain our own uniquely American mythology and true contribution to pop culture. Westerns are the American Arthurian Legend.
Born from the harsh realities of the Old West, bred through a century of thrilling popular culture in novels and film that fired the public imagination, imprinted by books and movies that cross-pollinated each other to create a grand mythology that remains popular as ever today; it’s hard to tell now where the reality ends and myth begins with westerns, but cowboy good guys and bad guys are baked into our collective consciousness.
While there is a certain mystery to the mystique of the western, some things are certain: it’s a heroic genre, full of honor and nobility with bigger-than-life heroes and villains; it’s a physical genre, action-packed on the purest level with riding and fistfights and shooting; and it’s a cathartic genre, where morality tales about good versus evil end in a decisive, satisfying showdown at the climax that gives us a vicarious sense of triumph we rarely achieve in our complicated real world where right and wrong is not always clear.
Some part of us needs this as human beings on the deepest level, which is the appeal of all heroic mythologies going back forever. Reading or watching a western, however briefly, we experience the wish fulfillment of becoming the cowboys we played at being as kids and heroes we want to be as adults if only real life were as simple as saddling your horse, grabbing your guns, and riding to the rescue.
One of the things as a screenwriter and novelist I appreciate most about westerns is the genre can absorb every other genre into the storytelling; elements of other genres like thriller, mystery, crime, even horror, all can be injected into a western story. There is even a thriving genre of romance westerns! The classic template of cowboys and guns and horses and landscapes is a canvas that can be painted with many brushes; this very adaptability makes it such an exciting genre for a writer to explore.
While many folks know me for my horror and thriller films and books, in actuality westerns are my favorite genre and the genre I’ve worked the most in, having written and produced western movies, written western novels and even created a western comic book. The movie was an HBO film called The Last Outlaw starring Mickey Rourke, a gritty, bloody adventure about a gang of outlaws pursued by a posse led by their leader who they had left for dead.
Mixing the horror and western literary genres became the inspiration for my novels The Guns Of Santa Sangre and its sequel The Wolves Of El Diablo from SST Publications, about three tough American gunfighters battling several generations of werewolves who are bandits by day in Old Mexico.
My bestselling current western book series, the Joe Noose Westerns from Pinnacle Books & Kensington Books, revolves around the adventures of a tough and complex bounty hunter in 1800s Wyoming. With Noose, Hanging Fire, Branded and The Crimson Trail, the Noose series is on its fourth book with more to come.
My lifelong love of the Western genre continues to inspire me endlessly as a creative open range of possibilities always offering new frontiers in storytelling.
Saddle up.
Excellent new review on Dark Owl of the German translation of my road thriller novel WHITE KNUCKLE from the Berlin publisher, Savage Types.
Full English translation of the German review:
“From the screenwriter of the films “Hitcher”, “Near Dark” and “Blue Steel.” A serial killer on the highways has been killing his female victims unmolested for decades, leaving a trail of blood and tears. Known under the CB nickname WHITE KNUCKLE, the trucker, who kills with perverse lust, cruelly killed hundreds of women and buried their bodies all over the country. But now the young FBI agent Sharon Ormsby is on his heels to stop him. Undercover, at the side of an experienced trucker, hunts for the killer in his eighteen-wheeled monster. That means one thing above all: a tough showdown on the highway!
A serial killer is up to mischief on the highway. His prey: pretty women. He’s after her and he’s hungry. In his truck he has his own hiding place for his victims, which is very well hidden. Sounds scary? It is. White Knuckle manages to take the reader on an extremely exciting journey right from the start. But be careful, this will not be a smooth ride! This trip is bloodthirsty, dangerous and brutal. You experience the characters up close through very lively descriptions. The reader experiences feelings, such as fears, despair and hopelessness, up close. It feels like you’re right in the middle of it and even in this truck. Goosebumps feeling guaranteed! The book and its story are captivating and action-packed. You can hardly put the book aside. At the end, White Knuckle puts a real icing on the cake, I promise, it’s terrific.
An incredibly fast, brutal and exciting thriller that has it all. A wild ride on the highway that the reader will not forget quickly.”
BRANDED, the third novel in my Joe Noose Western series from Kensington Books, is now available for pre-order in Mass Market Paperback and Kindle editions on Amazon.
From the publisher’s description: “SCARRED FOR LIFE. Joe Noose hunts down the first known serial killer on the American frontier in this trailblazing thriller. A new kind of evil has come to the Old West. A killer as cold and hard as the Wyoming winter. He wanders from town to town. Slaughters entire families along the way. With grotesque glee, he brands the letter Q in his victims’ flesh. Joe Noose knows the killer’s identity. He recognizes the killer’s brand. He bears the same scar from his childhood—and he’s determined to stop this madman once and for all. Two U.S. Marshals have agreed to help Joe. But they’ve never hunted a killer like this before. A sadist who kills for pleasure—and scars you for life…”
BRANDED is available for pre-order on Amazon at https://amzn.to/2YrD8PW
“On the highways, a serial killer has been killing his female victims unmolested for decades, leaving a trail of blood and tears. Known under the CB nickname “WHITE KNUCKLE”, the trucker, who kills with perverse lust, cruelly killed hundreds of women and buried their bodies all over the country. But now the young FBI agent Sharon Ormsby is on his heels to stop him. Undercover, at the side of an experienced trucker, chases the killer in his eighteen-wheeled monster.
That means one thing above all: a tough showdown on the highway!
The author Eric Red should / should be known to a number of film fans. His screenplays include several classic action genres. Who doesn’t know “Hitcher, the highway killer”? Now, the small but extremely fine publisher Savage Types, based in Berlin, has cut the ignorant of publishers for mass digestion and brought this incredible cracker to Germany. This fast-paced thriller is just beginning in the mild wind of familiar fabrics from the country that likes to indulge in selfishness and is currently trying to let epidemics or viruses do their job of destroying the world. Resisters who develop a serum are bought up, if they can. Fortunately, you don’t need serum for serial killers, just a few pieces of hot lead and a lot of courage. FBI agent Sharon Ormsby has this to offer when she is targeted at the unknown murderer, who soon turns out to be a mass murderer in the course of the investigation (that much can be revealed). She quickly realizes that a trucker must be the culprit. A track that follows it is wrong. The guy is on the road and rages worse and worse. He is a brutal, bloodthirsty sadist who torments and guts his victims and does worse things, which you can get pictured at the end. In general, the language, the style of the author can set the reader’s head cinema in motion and soon, like in convoy, he sprints across the state’s overland routes and remembers a nasty grinning Rutger Hauer in every car or family carriage, who already made his victims has its sights on. Increases reading pleasure even more. It is also very good that this torture, which is emotional for the protagonists, is described explicitly and close to life and only leaves space for a few small jokes. And because such a normal serial killer hunt no longer really works on its own, Eric Red has decided in some side lines, some quite important, unlike in the giant shelf mainstream, for customers who don’t know what they want, but only want what they know – the crap from the advertising time sprinkling – to close secretly quietly and differently than expected. Small WOW effects and its finale in the whole story add another one. Ultra-extreme (at least for the free market with its Censorship regulations that tell adult people in a kind of advanced self-castration (FSK) what they have to read or look at), hard, bloody and sometimes freaky as well as exciting, nerve-wracking White Knuckle Ride from a story in which the book is so firmly before suspense includes that you can watch your own ankles as they gradually change their natural skin color to white. Is there an unspeakable horror? Quien sabe? THAT must be thriller entertainment. Thank you, Savage Types publisher.”
Read the full review in German at: https://bit.ly/2A7bkWZ
In Mass Market Paperback and Kindle editions on Amazon at https://amzn.to/2YrD8PW.
From the publisher’s description: “SCARRED FOR LIFE. Joe Noose hunts down the first known serial killer on the American frontier in this trailblazing thriller. A new kind of evil has come to the Old West. A killer as cold and hard as the Wyoming winter. He wanders from town to town. Slaughters entire families along the way. With grotesque glee, he brands the letter Q in his victims’ flesh. Joe Noose knows the killer’s identity. He recognizes the killer’s brand. He bears the same scar from his childhood—and he’s determined to stop this madman once and for all. Two U.S. Marshals have agreed to help Joe. But they’ve never hunted a killer like this before. A sadist who kills for pleasure—and scars you for life…”
Coming to bookstores February 2021.
From the publisher’s description: “SCARRED FOR LIFE. Joe Noose hunts down the first known serial killer on the American frontier in this trailblazing thriller. A new kind of evil has come to the Old West. A killer as cold and hard as the Wyoming winter. He wanders from town to town. Slaughters entire families along the way. With grotesque glee, he brands the letter Q in his victims’ flesh. Joe Noose knows the killer’s identity. He recognizes the killer’s brand. He bears the same scar from his childhood—and he’s determined to stop this madman once and for all. Two U.S. Marshals have agreed to help Joe. But they’ve never hunted a killer like this before. A sadist who kills for pleasure—and scars you for life…”
Thanks to my editor Gary Goldstein and the great team at Kensington Books and Pinnacle Books.