Sundance

by Richard Telfair

All the wild, reckless years of gunfighting were behind him - until the Broadhurst gang hit the hotel de Paree.

Genres: Westerns

124 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 1960

About the author

pseudonym of Richard Jessup

Series contributed to:
* Secret Agent Adventure

Reviews

[Chris Haynes]

This book is a TV tie-in novel for the 1959-1960 TV series Hotel de Paree staring Earl Holliman as Sundance. The show only lasted 33 episodes and with a name like that, I can see why. I've never seen the show but based on the book, this is not The Sundance Kid, just a gunfighter named Sundance.

Off the bat, I would give the book 3-3.5 stars out of 5. I thought the book was well written and I liked the characters but frankly not a lot happened. Most of the book was the suspense waiting for a couple of showdowns. When the showdowns took place, they were over fairly quickly and weren't given a lot of detail. I've read other Telfair books and I think he's a good writer but this book just didn't have a lot of meat on the bone.

[John Peel]

Based on the TV series "Hotel de Paree", this is a short novel, but quite fun. Sundance (no other name) is part-owner of the Hotel de Paree. He's an ex-gunman who has trouble laying his weapons aside; naturally, there are enough baddies around so that he has to take them up again. In this case, it's a bunch of cattle drovers who come to town and shoot up the hotel. Straight forward enough - but then the drovers have their internal problems that lead to further escalation.

Nice action, and the villains aren't all alike. Motives get mixed, and soon enough the bullets are flying. It's not entirely accurate to the show, but it's close enough and fun besides.