Alaska Steel

Fargo #3

by John Benteen

The brainchild of Amazon Kindle Number One bestselling western writers Mike Stotter and Ben Bridges, PICCADILLY PUBLISHING is dedicated to reissuing classic fiction from Yesterday and Today! ALASKA STEEL Fargo threw back the parka hood, and cold wind lashed his face. He reloaded the shotgun—and then he stood up, exposing himself to fire below. He waved the shotgun high, making a foolish, careless, inspiring, fearless target of himself. “Come on!” he bellowed. “Charge!” His men responded. They rushed forward. Whetstone’s crowd had broken, scattered, run for doorways, house-corners, alleys. A few bullets whined around Fargo. He could not shoot down into the street now for fear of hitting his own men. Satisfied, still snarling like a maddened timber wolf, he fell down, slid to the back of the cabin, dropped off into a drift behind the house. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Benjamin Leopold Haas was born in Charlotte, North Carolina, in 1926. His imagination was inspired by the stories of the Civil War and Reconstruction as told by his Grandmother, who had lived through both. Ben’s father was also a pioneer operator of motion picture theatres, “ ... so I had free access to every theatre in Charlotte and saw countless films growing up, hooked on the lore of our own South and the Old West.” Largely self educated (he had to drop out of college in order to support his family), Ben wrote his first story, a pulp short for a western magazine, when he was just eighteen. But when he was drafted into the Army, his dreams of becoming a writer were put on hold. He served as a Sergeant in the U.S. Army from 1945 to 1946, and saw action in the Philippines. Returning home to Charlotte (and later Sumter, in South Carolina) in 1946, Ben married Douglas Thornton Taylor from Raleigh four years later. The father of three sons (Joel, Michael and John), Ben was working for a steel company when he sold his first novel in 1961. The acceptance coincided with being laid off, and thereafter he wrote full time. A prolific writer who would eventually pen some 130 books under his own and a variety of pen-names, Ben wrote almost twenty-four hours a day. “I tried to write 5000 words or more every day, scrupulous in maintaining authenticity,” he later said. Ben wanted to be a mainstream writer, but needed a way to finance himself between serious books, and so he became a paperback writer. Ben’s early pen names include Ben Elliott (his grandmother’s maiden name), who wrote Westerns for Ace; and Sam Webster, who wrote five books for Monarch. As Ken Barry he turned out racy paperback originals for Beacon with titles like The Love Itch and Executive Boudoir. But his agent was not happy about his decision to enter the western market, and suggested he represent himself on those sales. Ben had sent a trial novel to Harry Shorten of Tower Books. Ben’s family remembers it being A Hell of A Way to Die, written for Tower’s new Lassiter series. It was published in 1969, and editor Shorten told his new author to create a western series of his own. The result was Fargo. The success of Fargo led to the Sundance series. Jim Sundance is a half-Cheyenne gunslinger who takes on the toughest jobs in order to raise funds to fight the corrupt Indian Ring back in Washington. The short-lived John Cutler series followed, and then perhaps Ben’s crowning achievement, the Rancho Bravo novels, published under the name Thorne Douglas. Ben Haas died from a heart attack in New York City after attending a Literary Guild dinner in 1977. He was just fifty-one.

Genres: Westerns

Paperback

First published January 1, 1980

About the author

Pseudonym used by Ben Haas.

Reviews

[Jonathan Ammon · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the best men's adventure books I've read with impressive setting, attention to detail, and plotting. As with most of the genre it won't win any awards for progressivism, and features an unsavory 70s macho fantasy regarding violence against women. I decided to ignore this in my rating and review as the genre itself is the equivalent of harlequin bodice rippers which have their own problematic elements baked into the tropes.

[Michael D. Anderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cold as HELL"

Well done, John, almost put me along side Fargo in a wilderness of cold hell! Know I wouldnt have survived!

[Barbara Lee Wood · Rating 5 out of 5]

ICY ICY PLACE

Greed Greed and wilderness, you could more or less call it the last frontier. Alaska where men went to become rich from panning gold. Life is hard unimaginably hard, six months of darkness and six months of daylight. Ice every where and I law to protect you in the back country. Men killing or dry gauching other trappers or miners for their caches.
Fargo whose all over the continent, was hired by a movie star to find her husband. This Hal Dolan,
went to ALaska to survey railroad placement. While there he decided to pan for gold, even though the area was supposedly panned out, Hal takes out approximately fifteen thousand dollars worth. He was framed a vigilante group, headed by a man named Whitmore, who was in charge of a town called "Circle City," this was an old rendition of an "outlaw town." Whitmore owned every cabin and mercantile store in the area and you had to pay to stay. He cheated, murdered and he surrounded himself with thugs who were wanted in Canada, but not Alaska.
Alaska was a state yet, so it was the wild wild ice coat.
Fargo is searching for Hal Dolan, whom we should say rescues him and a lady named Belle. Fargo and Belle are deposited in the freezing cold to die by orders of Whitmore, who felt intimidated by Fargo. Besides Jane, the actress who hired Fargo, also a man eater, who may bite off more than she can chew ogling Whitmore.
Well all I can say about this icy adventure, is that Fargo's skills of endurance are put to the test.
He's exhibiting violence towards women, especially when he slaps Jane around. Not to thrilled about those scenes, in fact, I think the author should consider this in future Fargo expeditions. I'll give it five stars excluding the face slapping of Jane because he's 😠😠angry. But Fargo series is movie material..maybe??

[Josh Hitch · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's everything you would want in a quick nasty western. Fargo is a great character in a world where no one is a saint. There is very little background, only what you need and the action is solid. Fargo is hired by a film star to see if her husband is dead so she can get inheritance that he is owed. Only she just knows he was in Alaska and its been 4 years. After that you have the fierceness of an Alaska winter, a town of outlaws ran with an ironhand, and Fargo still needs to find the husband when just his name seems to start fights.

Highly recommended, the series isnt for the faint of heart but its a great gritty quick read.

[Christopher Taylor · Rating 3 out of 5]

A rip roaring violent adventure with hot dames, tough guys, guns, and battles aplenty. These are billed as westerns, but they aren't really. They're set in the very early 1900s just at the fringe of the frontier settling down.

In this book, Fargo goes to Alaska to help a woman find her husband, because a big payoff is involved. There things go unusually badly for Fargo but he manages to grit his way through and triumph, but this time with a great deal of help. In some ways, Fargo isn't even the main character of this one. He's really rough on the woman involved as well, unusually so, even for this series.

[Jon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another awesome Fargo adventure, maybe the best so far.

[Eddie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just an out of control western fantasy adventure. It was a great rainy weekend read. I got very cold.

[Les Wolf · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Fargo's lips curled into a wolfish grin." What more can I say?

[Carl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Re read this, I love these old westerns that wre written in the 70's and 80's Edge, steel, Morgan Kane and especially Fargo.
Have been trying to root a few of these old books out but they are so hard to come by.
Fargo is a tough mercenary, a veteran of many difficult campaigns. He is a master of weapons and a
N excellent had to hand fighter whose ambidextrous skill with weapons has saved his life on many occasion.
On a mission to find a sexy film stars husband in Aladka he comes up against the local head honcho who runs the town.
Fargo and this man eventually clash, but who is the toughest and who will survive .
If the cold don't get em the hot lead will!
Holed up in the snow with a sex bomb on one hand and a stone cold killer on the other, Fargo must use all his skill to earn his pay.

Fargo was always my favourite western hero, this book shows why.

[Robert · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fornication and gun play

Fargo is hired to locate a woman's husband up in the wilderness of Alaska. No problem until the wife decides she must travel along. The woman is man hungry and soon the duo are going at it like ruttin bucks. On the steamer, in a cave, in a hotel, in a one room shanty, the fornication pauses long enough for Fargo to blast a couple no good nix, finds the boss man in the little Alaskan town where husband was last seen, get beat up and hauled out into the wilderness with only his long John's on. Finally meets the missing man, hears a strange story from him, then turns around, and with an army of miners, ride into town to settle a score. after copious amount of bullets have flown, it's back to fornication. Not nearly as death defying as the Panama adventures in book 2.

[Randy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fargo hires out to an actress who needs to find out the fate of a husband she hasn't seen in years. A half million dollar inheritance is at stake.

[Barry · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the bloodiest best of the Fargo books