Notched Guns

by William Hopson

The town branded him a coward! Matt McKee never packed a gun. He backed away from fights. He never touched liquor. The whole town laughed when he walked down the street. Then a group of gun-swift rustlers tried to take over the rich range country and in the whole territory, only Matt McKee had guts enough to fight.

224 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1947

About the author

William Lee Hopson (1907 - 1975) was primarily a Western author. He was sometimes published under the name William L. Hopson and used a pseudonym, John Sims, for at least four Western novels.

After joining the U.S. Marines, Hopson served as a weapons instructor during World War II. Afterwards, he had various jobs as a coyote hunter and trick flyer. At the same time, he wrote crime novels and Western stories for pulp magazines between 1938 and 1958, as well as several novels, some of which were reworkings of previous short stories.

At a presentation in a newspaper in 1954, Hopson said he began by determining the background and reading in on time and place, and then sketching out his main character to give him a problem to solve. When this was done, he believed that the book was basically writing itself. Hopson's publishers wanted nine books a year, but Hopson got it down to six and was happy if it was four or five annually.

After living family life in Arizona for eight years in the 1950s, Hopson moved to California, where he lived until his death in 1975.

Reviews

[Rich · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'll pass on him next time I run across one of his. It was interesting to see his style and he did have one interesting character (ex School teacher/outlaw) but little else to entice.