Silvertip's Trap

Silvertip

by Max Brand

At 30, Bill Naylor had spent half his life behind bars. Free again, and while looking for a new job, he saves a man from drowning. The rescued man turns out to be Barry Christian, the outlaw king. Naylor, rewarded with a top job in Christian’s gang, thinks his fortune’s made. But Christian’s deadly enemy is Arizona Jim Silver—the legendary Silvertip.Silvertip has vowed to bring Christian to justice. Naylor, who know firsthand about Silvertip’s courage and fairness, realizes that Silvertip, his friend, is the more formidable of the two giants.Then Christian plans the crime of his career, a daring robbery that will make the gang rich. For Naylor it is the one chance of a lifetime—until Naylor learns that Christian’s plot calls for Silvertip’s death.

Genres: Westerns

100 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1961

About the author

Frederick Schiller Faust (see also Frederick Faust), aka Frank Austin, George Owen Baxter, Walter C. Butler, George Challis, Evin Evan, Evan Evans, Frederick Faust, John Frederick, Frederick Frost, David Manning, Peter Henry Morland, Lee Bolt, Peter Dawson, Martin Dexter, Dennis Lawson, M.B., Hugh Owen, Nicholas Silver

Max Brand, one of America's most popular and prolific novelists and author of such enduring works as Destry Rides Again and the Doctor Kildare stories, died on the Italian front in 1944.

Reviews

[Jeff Tankersley · Rating 2 out of 5]

An occasional outlaw named Bill Naylor is sitting alone on the range, contemplating what he should do next with his life, when he witnesses a well-known outlaw named Barry Christian fall into a raging river to escape a posse of lawmen. Bill saves him and befriends the fame-seeking Christian, setting him on a path of worshipful teaming with his hero Christian that has a number of fun adventures and sequences of self-discovery. Christian himself has a half-combative half-emulating respect for a legendary lawman named Jim Silver who he worriedly keeps in mind while planning jailbreaks and train robberies.

Verdict: "Silvertip's Trap" (1933) is an interesting concept but a mostly boringly-told western adventure in the shoes of a conflicted young everyman named Bill Naylor that is just kind of muddled and poorly paced. Brand has better stuff out there.

Jeff's Rating: 2 / 5 (Okay)
movie rating if made into a movie: PG

[Robert Hepple · Rating 4 out of 5]

Published in book form in 1946, 'Silvertip's Trap' is one of many published after the author's death having previously been published in pulp fiction serialised form. Most, like this one, are well written and are very traditional style western novels.

[Stephanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

The writing just keeps you going and going. Enjoyable book. Can a criminal recover his life by his actions?

[Pemo Asem · Rating 5 out of 5]

27 years later, I still love to read the book.

[Mike Grady · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting entry into the Silvertip series - the primary character is Bill Naylor, who finds himself torn between good and evil.

[Kristen · Rating 4 out of 5]

You gotta love Silvertip!

[Ronald · Rating 3 out of 5]

read SOMETIME in 2001