Relentless Gun

by Giles A. Lutz

Vintage paperback; western fiction.

Mass Market Paperback

First published July 1, 1962

About the author

Giles Alfred Lutz (March 1910–June 1982) was a prolific author of fiction in the Western genre. Born in 9 March 1910 in Kansas City, Missouri, United States, Lutz for many years wrote short stories about the American West that were published in pulp magazines. His story "Get a Wild Horse Hunter," an example of his pulp fiction writing, appeared in the June 1952 edition of the magazine Western Novels and Short Stories. In the mid-1950s Lutz made the transition to full-length novels, and until his death in June 1982, published numerous stories about the American West. In 1962, Lutz won the Western Writers of America Golden Spur Award for his novel, The Honyocker.

Lutz wrote under several pseudonyms during his pulp fiction career, including under the names: " James B. Chaffin," " Wade Everett (with Will Cook)," " Alex Hawk," "Hunter," " Hunter Ingram," " Reese Sullivan," and " Gene Thompson." Under the pseudonym " Brad Curtis," Lutz wrote steamy pulp novels in the erotica genre. He also wrote a lot of sports fiction for the pulp magazines, in titles like Ace Sports, Complete Sports, and Football Stories.

Reviews

[Kirk · Rating 5 out of 5]

Before I say anything else-because I have a lot to say-I’m going to start with this: this was a damned good book.

Was it perfect? No.

It had a few cliches from westerns. A deputy with a dream of finding a plot of land for him and his lady to settle down on. A fiery woman who had a bit of fight in her. And a few bad guys. One with honor and one without.

There were a few times where I got a bit nervous. This author skirts around the edge of sexism fairly tactfully. Fairly. At one point the protagonist tells his female companion not to throw a vase at him. He tells her this because-he muses internally-if she does, he knows he’s going to slap her. So he doesn’t threaten the violence, but he’s thinking about it, doing his best to be an honorable man.

I thought it was going to have a racist bent to it. In the beginning the protagonist meets a group of Mexicans in the desert, and he observes that this means trouble. But later the character thinks about how shitty white people treat Mexicans during this time period, and says they have a right to be pissed. He never says they are inherently bad, which for westerns in the 50s, it is better than I expected.

There are two villains. One with honor and one without. The one with honor is a Mexican who is trying to get revenge on a few men for murdering his brother. The protagonist and this villain have that mutual respect that comes with honor. They know they’ll probably have to kill one another, but they’re okay with that.

The other villain is a sociopathic capitalist pig. He’s got no honor and he gets what he fucking deserves.

And of course everything wraps up a bit too neatly. The honorable villain loses his cool and ends up going over the line he’s been toeing through the book, justifying his death, BUT he also gets to kill the last man who murdered his brother, so his arc wraps up.

Then the second mystery gets put to rest. The protagonist gets his girl. And all ends well.

So was it perfect? No.

Was it good? Yeah.

Five stars though? Look, man. We’re talking about an author born in 1910 who is sharing the shades of gray associated with race relations, creating minority characters with a bit of dimension. Of the four most honorable and upright characters in the book, two are women and two are hispanic. It isn’t perfect, but it is pretty good for its time. Author’s more progressive than Joe Biden, at least 🤷🏻‍♀️

I also do like the element of honor. Regardless of where you fall on the political spectrum, I’m sure we can all agree that honor has kind of flew out the window in our society. So it was nice to see there was a time when literature-even pulp fiction-tried to preserve that.

It is my first western novel, and I’m sure as I read more (there will be more this year. My grandfather was a big fan of them, and I have about five in my collection I’m hoping to dig through this year) I’ll look back on this one and see more issues. But overall it was written effectively. The chase scenes were well done. The action was good. It had a cinematic feel to it, and I’m a bit disappointed that I’m only the third reader to check this book out.

(Final note: my copy says the book was published in 1958. Goodreads has a different year listed, which appears to be inaccurate.)

[Rob Smith, Jr. · Rating 5 out of 5]

A crackerjack novel. A lean novel that writer Lutz deftly crafts into an excellent story. The few pages establishing a slew of characters and the location and the conflicts involved and so much more is very impressive and very readable. I love how the book starts and then the interactions with the same two characters repeats in different instances unveiling so many dimensions of the them.

The books unravels more as a mystery than any standard western. In some ways i could see the plot being as much in '20s Chicago or '80s Miami. Though, Lutz's characters and approach are pure western.

I recommend this book: 10 out of ten points.

[TheManOnTheMoon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent read. One of my favorites. The characters have surprising depth for such a short book . Love , lust, greed, bar fights , horse chases and gun shots !

[Davy Bennett · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't remember for sure which of his books I read. I think this one.
I heard him on a radio talk show in Houston in the 1980s. Made me buy this book. Probably for a quarter.