The Last Shootout

by William Hopson

Unknown Binding

Published January 1, 1972

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

[Robert Jr. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don’t remember where I got this book from, but I picked it from my to-read Westerns stack because it was the thinnest book there. It was a decent classic-style Western. The hero’s blonde, tall, and hard, of course, the sort of cheese that can backfire easily and make a work unreadable, but it never gets that bad here; in fact, there are some real flashes of grim western fun. However, this novel does not feature the frontier landscape anywhere in it, which I do want to have in Westerns that I read.

He was a lean man of thirty-one, blond, slightly over six feet, and wolf-wary from years of riding those same midnight alleys where friends of lawless men now dead or in prison might be lurking for an ambush shot. [pg.6]

He’s also morose with the typical dead-spouse backstory:

“I buried most of my conscience in a small windswept cemetery in Arizona a long time ago. She was killed by a wild shot fired by a drunken young cowboy, who cried at her funeral the next day.” [pg.50]

I love that quote, btw.

What almost becomes a femme fatale, but she never quite gets there, and then there’s the love interest. The love interest is a collar tugger, as she’s a young woman whom the protagonist knew as a little girl (last seen when she was 9 years old) and now suddenly appears back in her life. So of course, she’s in love with him, and he wants her. Fortunately, she just appears in two major framing scenes with a sporadic glimpse here and there in the main body of the story. So, as you have already guessed, there is no character development concerning her. Her major scenes are her introduction and the end, where she ends up on the hero’s arm, essentially serving as a reward for the hero. Frankly, it seems the romance angle was forced into this story, which did not need it at all.

The weakest aspects of this book imho, are that the shootouts in this story felt too long and most ended in draws where one of both parties simply ran away, and some key murders happen off-stage! The characters also are not particularly strong; they just seem there to service the plot which is a thin ex-gang member comes back to seek “justice” (read revenge) for another former member who was seemingly murdered (why this point is drug out in the narrative I’ll never know, it was apparent and even confessed to multiple times in the story before ethe ending) by the other ex-members who are all now legitimately running a town on the edge of becoming a boomtown. Another note on the mystery of “who” shot Bud Corson (the murdered former member), everyone in town knows who the shooter is, but will not tell the hero (for various stupid reasons), so he comes off as ineffectual and a little dumb.

“It’s too late, Ladino,” he said with a strange, sad bitterness. “I’d give anything in this world to roll back time ten years, ten months---even ten weeks. But we’ve all danced, and if the fiddler from hell is coming to collect for his music, he’ll have to take all three of us; and he won’t find me crying.” [pgs.97-98]

That previous quote hints at where the author should have taken the story, in my opinion, as a reader. Where’s the bitterness and regret with all these old comrades who have cheated death and saved each other’s lives on numerous occasions? This could have been the primary source for pain and drama, but instead, a cringy non-entity is introduced as a love interest, which does not even really figure into this story at all. Oh well.

The bits where a few phrases of grim or purely western genre ephemera pop into the narrative, I dig it, that’s probably why I’ve ranked this one as high as I have. Don’t get me wrong, this story is perfectly serviceable as Westerns go. However, it’s not really a standout at all save for the quotes I’ve included. There are a few other interesting points in there, but unless you’re a die-hard reader of Westerns, I think you can skip this one.

Favorite Quote:

“My job is to win souls for my Creator, not cause them to be destroyed before they’re saved. Do you think I’d tell you who shot Bud Corson to death and have that same person’s soul blasted into eternal hell by your gunfire?” [pg.58]