Hop Alley

by Scott Phillips

Cottonwood (2004) was a huge step forward for the burgeoning king of noir Scott Phillips, and his dark and gritty take on the western earned him starred reviews and praise from crime masters Michael Connelly and George Pelecanos. That novel featured the Kansas town beginning in 1872 when it was just a small community of run down farms, dusty roads, and two-bit crooks. Saloon owner and photographer Bill Ogden thought it could be more and allied with wealthy developer Marc Leval to capitalize on the advent of the railroad and the cattle trail that soon turned Cottonwood into a wild boomtown. But problems followed the money and soon Bill was confronting both the wicked family of serial killers known as the Bloody Benders as well as his one-time friend Marc, having fallen into an affair with his beautiful wife Maggie. Bill then turned up alone in San Francisco in 1890, having to face a past from which he could not run.

But what happened to him in those missing years? What happened to Maggie, to Bill, and their escape from the murderous Bender family?

Hop Alley answers all those questions as we return to the Wild West and discover Bill Ogden, now living as Bill Sadlaw, running a photo studio near the Chinese part of town know as Hop Alley in the frontier town of Denver in 1878. Left by Maggie, Bill enjoys an erotic affair with Priscilla, a fallen singer addicted to laudanum, who is also seeing his friend Ralph Banbury, the editor of the local Denver Bulletin (neither man minds sharing). Bill’s peaceful time away from Cottonwood turns anything but as he must confront the mysterious murder of his housekeeper’s brother-in-law, the increasing instability of Priscilla as both men try to ease out of her clutches, and an all out-riot across Hop Alley. And when the body count starts rising, Bill will soon start wishing he had never left Cottonwood at all.

Hop Alley proves that no one does the Wild West like noir master Scott Phillips.

Genres: Westerns, Historical Fiction, Fiction, Crime

192 pages, Hardcover

First published April 21, 2014

Reviews

[Still]

Wonderful stuff.
Funny and action-packed.
Required reading for anyone who's read Cottonwood.


In the earlier account of the adventures of the multi-enterprising photographer Bill Ogden there appeared to be a missing section.
A section that should have detailed what happened to Ogden following the events that occurred between 1873 in Cottonwood, Kansas and 1890 in San Francisco.

This short novel chronicles narrator Ogden's misadventures following his abrupt departure from Cottonwood.

If Donald E. Westlake had ever written a novel set in the Victorian Era of the American West it might have been this good.

Scott Phillips is a gifted author and the three novels of his that I've read so far have been delightfully engaging.

I enjoyed this novel every bit as much as I enjoyed reading Cottonwood.
If you've read Cottonwood, I can't imagine what's holding you back from reading Hop Alley: A Novel

[WJEP]

For sure Phillips read the Flashman books by George MacDonald Fraser. Bill Sadlaw (nee Ogden) is a goatish rascal who's path intersects with historic events of early Colorado.

But Phillips is not as brazen as Fraser. Yes, in Denver, in 1878, there were laudanum addicts, blowjobs, and fellers who stick their neck out for Chinese laundrymen. But I get the feeling that Phillips highlighted these things to make the story agreeable to modern readers.

[K]

I jumped right into this book without having read Cottonwood and perhaps that was a mistake. The characters are interesting, but without any background or sense of their histories, they seemed to lack depth, as if they were two dimensional rather than three.

The story is brief and moves along nicely, but ultimately failed to win me over. Liked, not loved, and a straight-up three stars it is.

[Tuck]

idk, i guess you could say this is subtle, but others could come away underwhelmed by this prequel to a great western/noir novel 'cottonwood'. we learn what 'bill' does after he kills the richest man in cottonwood and vacates with the beautiful widow in tow.
they end up in colorado territory, he as photographer, she as acolyte utopian in greely.
he quickly decamps to denver and sets up his photography studio and lives the life. solves are murder mystery, saves an old chinese guy in hop alley during a race riot, gets arrested for murder, busts jail and takes the train to san francisco (where cottonwood starts)
author phillips has become famous for his brutal truthful look of motivations, morals, murders, what really moves us.
this one really for scott phillips fans and not the neophyte, but if so inclined, do do read cottonwood too and it'll be a five star historically accurate noir of unique gritty style, lots of sex, avarice, and violence. just like it is. Cottonwood

btw phillips uses his tropes in interesting ways= war vet back to square life, sees the pettiness and corruption of 'everyday american life' , figures he is due a living too, and takes it by their rules; through duplicitous, violence, con, friendship, hard work, using people, forging partners, ...
so author plugs this 'formula' in to books taking place in 1980, 1950, 1850, 1880

it works every time.

[Scott Gilbert]

Tasty reading, light and simple. An excellent narrator, Phillips is proving not to be a Willeford (although his tense is similar), but a kind of a light Leonard. Colorful as fuck, but without that basic polarization of truth. He's becoming a broader, more urbane version of Joe Landsdale, but again, the underpinnings of meaning are sliding.

[Shawn]

Simple escapism. I'd like to be Bill, the philandering photographer who is thankfully not haunted by the murder he committed. Of course he gets himself into the center of other murders but still retains a moral code and comes out of everything ahead of the game.

There are worse ways to spend two hours

[Andrew]

Love Scott Phillips

Love Scott Phillips

Scott Phillips reminds me of another favorite author, Charles Willeford. Both offer a laconic and jaundiced view of the world that is impossible to describe. You week either love this kind of writing and book or it will do nothing for you. I love it. give it a try and check out his other books as well.

[Doug Clark]

In early September, I finished Hop Alley by Scott Phillips. Hop Alley is a sequel of sorts to Phillips’ 2004 novel, Cottonwood. Cottonwood takes place in the town of Cottonwood Kansas, a small town in southeastern Kansas, in 1872. My interest in that novel was due to the fact that it told the story of the Bloody Benders, a family that ran an inn in which they robbed and killed people who came to stay. This part is true. In fact, along US Highway 400 and US Highway 169 interchange is a historical marker about the Bloody Benders (see below) and one can still drive by the Bender Mounds, a series of hills in which the Benders lived. Suspicion grew and people came to investigate the Benders. However, by the time anyone came, the Benders vanished into history. They were never caught or heard from again.

Cottonwood tells the story of saloon owner and photographer Bill Ogden during these events and then picks up the story in 1890 when two women purported to be members of the Bender family are caught and tried.

I had read about the Benders when I was young and had been to the historical marker and driven by the Mounds many times as I had relatives living in nearby Parsons Kansas. When I read about the novel, I immediately purchased it and read it with great fascination.

Now 10 years later, Phillips gives us Hop Alley, a novel that explains what happened to Ogden in the years between the original events and his reappearance at the trials in 1890. After moving around with Maggie, a women he had an affair with in Cottonwood, and abandoning her at a commune in Colorado, Ogden, now known as Bill Sadlaw, turns up running a photography studio in Denver in 1878. He, and the newspaper editor, Ralph Banbury, are both seeing a fallen singer addicted to laudanum, Priscilla, and are both trying to find ways to leave her. Sadlaw’s studio is in the Chinese section of Denver known as Hop Alley. Events turn tense when his housekeeper’s brother-in-law, a mean and evil man, is nearly murdered, and then murdered. The Chinese residents are suspected of having committed the murder and a riot ensues that eventually leads to Sadlaw once more hitting the road.

Although Phillips does a good job or recreating the time and place in Hop Alley, I found the novel not to be particularly engrossing. It seemed to just be a slice of life and didn’t have a fixed resolution as such. Yes, there is a thin plot and there is action, but I couldn’t find myself becoming interested in these characters. I’m not sad I read the book, but I can’t give it much of a recommendation either.

[Ronald Koltnow]

To Be Published by Counterpoint in May of 2014

Scott Phillips's new novel is a sequel of sorts to his 2004 COTTONWOOD, a book which I have not yet read. HOP ALLEY works well as a standalone, with the previous novel's main character living under a different name in a different setting. It is filled with Phillips's general depravity and a touch of mayhem; No writer does amorality better than Scott Phillips. If the novel has a fault, it is that it is too short. There is some great material here about the Chinese in Denver and the opium use by white, mostly female, middle class citizens. The racial tension that touches off a conflagration here could fill a thick novel or two, but Phillips uses it as a backdrop to his central story of lust, betrayal, and murder. Phillips has a way of bringing out the charm in scheming sociopaths. His Bill Sadlaw (nee Bill Ogden) is a man with a past and a variable future. What he does in the here and now is not without it's own morality. Spending a few hours with Bill makes for great company.

[Craig]

Liked it, but didn't love it the way I did Cottonwood or The Walkaway. This is a direct sequel to Cottonwood, but it doesn't feel like a complete story. Seems like his last few books have been like this--more the set-up for a story than a real follow through. It's as well-written as ever, but feels largely inconsequential. Some stuff happens to our protagonist, then some more stuff, then the book ends. There's no real plot or story to speak of. Kind of disappointing, really.

[Larry]

Hop Alley follows up Bill Ogden’s crazy adventures in Cottonwood with a new name, Bill Sadlaw in a new town, Denver. He is still barely getting by as a photographer. The loosely structured plot centers on Bill’s love (lust) interest Priscilla, the kept woman of newspaper editor Banbury. There is a racist element in town looking for a reason to do violence to the Chinese citizenry. Also, lots of sex and a couple of murders committed by very angry women. A fun fast read with sassy dialogue and great characters.

[Lauren Woods]

I picked up this book as a comp title for my current WIP novel (genre: weird west) and was instantly hooked by the prose. I enjoyed the “slice of life” quality to it, and didn’t realize it was a sequel until about 3/4 through. I’d picked it up at the library based on other factors: cover, publication date, and if the first page hooked me without reading the blurb (it did). All in all, a very fun read that makes me want to read Cottonwood and all of Scott Phillips’ other works.

[Lisa]

Scott Phillips writes great crime stories, and by crime stories I don't mean detective stories but stories about criminals. His characters are Bad Dudes -- rakes, ruffians, liars, swindlers, extortionists, murderers -- but they are always interesting, and always getting themselves into and out interesting predicaments.
"Hop Alley" continues in this vein. It's sort of a prequel/sequel to "Cottonwood" but stands alone, telling the story of Bill Ogden (now using the name Bill Sadlaw) between the time he left Kansas and his arrival in San Francisco. He's in Denver, running a photo studio and more or less keeping his nose clean, but of course things don't stay that way. Though this book takes place in the 1870s West, it's not really a "Western" as most people would think of that genre. It is, however, a fast-paced, entertaining read.
Phillips' writing is gritty, funny and full of action. His books move quickly and you never quite know where they're going, which for me is a good thing. If you have delicate sensibilities, know that Phillips' books contain a fair amount of sex, violence and bad language -- but it is germane to the story, never gratuitous. Phillips seems at home writing in any time period -- Old West, contemporary France, post-WWII -- probably because human nature being what it is, there are always Bad Dudes, and they always get into trouble.

[Dan Downing]

Like a fine cognac, Scott Phillips is to be savored, the snifter swirled, a goodly glass but rarely overly full.
"Hop Alley" first brings to mind Dashiell Hammett. Now, this is certainly high praise, but I venture that Mr. Phillips has studied the literature of the late 1800s as well as Hammett. Here he writes with a restrained grace as was common approaching the fin de siecle while tossing grim humor, an amorality worthy of de Sade, and an irony noteworthy in noir fiction.
Nothing important has changed between the 1870s Denver tersely limned here and today's America. Oh, we have a few more doo-dads and such; the people, corruption, hypocrisy, racism, mis-distributed well being and general incompetence all remain familiar. SSDD. Our story follows an engaging fellow out of Jersey Kosinski, Voltaire, Richardson, Defoe, MacDonald, Thompson and their kin. Money is made, women are bedded, random good deeds performed amid general bastardy. Great fun.
Recommended.

[HillbillyMystic]

He's like an R-rated and less dark, angsty version of Cormac McCarthy with dialogue and scenery to rival a Tarantino western. I usually find sophomoric language to be juvenile and less than humorous but with dank sentences like, "stimulating her particularly hirsute genitalia" I could not help but smile many times during this read. Plus it does not hurt that Phillips writes about some of my favorite 1800's and contemporary topics like prostitutes, opium, Colt sidearms and gold. Besides with all the false flags, "patriot" acts, Orwellian societies and inside jobs in the last 15 years it seems to me that guns and gold are where it's at.

[Robert James]

Short and sweet. I am a fan of Scott Phillips especially since he's a local author. He doesn't write long novels and this can be read in one sitting. I wasn't much of a fan of his book "Rake" but I do like his westerns and was a big fan of "The Ice Harvest". Usually he is big on action and this take on a modern western doesn't waste any time in getting the action started. Looking forward to Mr. Phillips' next work.

[Tim Lockfeld]

Very pleasant read. Old West and opiates. Like a spin off of Deadwood without the Shakespearean language. One thing that bugged me, and here as a author he is far from alone: When taking opiates pupils become constricted NOT dilated. I am sure Mr. Phillips researched the shit out of Denver and environs, the use and abuse of opium, laudanum and morphine. Why not spend a little time on their effects?

[Alecia]

I feel like I came in on the middle of something, reading Hop Alley. I later found out it was a sequel of sorts to Cottonwood, which I have not read. Scott Phillip's writing is so entertaining that I now would like to read Cottonwood. But this one, as a stand alone, feels like it's missing a piece or two to complete the story. Although I enjoyed it, it felt a bit unsatisfying as a stand-alone novel.

[Jack]

Just ok. Seemed to have a few loose ends.

[Yosef Shapiro]

Not much of a plot. Very little seems to actually happen in this book .