Rebels and Assassins Die Hard

Adam Steele #1

by George G. Gilman

Abraham Lincoln is assassinated whilst at the theater in Washington. A great and honorable President is mourned by many, but his passing brings rejoicing to those Southerners defeated in the Civil War.Adam Steele finds he has a private grief to mourn, when he discovers the body of his father slowly swinging on a makeshift gallows. This is a sorrow he cannot share with other men.He sets out on a mission with deadly purpose. A vendetta that will turn old friends into enemies, that will bring a slow or sudden death to the marked men.

Genres: Westerns

152 pages, Unknown Binding

First published April 1, 1974

About the author

A pseudonym used by Terry Harknett.

Edge (61 books as George G. Gilman)
Adam Steele (49 books as George G. Gilman)
Edge Meets Adam Steele (3 books as George G. Gilman)
The Undertaker (6 books as George G. Gilman)

Reviews

[Kelly Furniss · Rating 4 out of 5]

President Abraham Lincoln is assassinated whilst at the theatre in Washington. As Adam Steele comes in to town
he discovers the body of his father hanging in a bar.
A group of men have wrongly assumed he played a part & Steele sets out on a mission with for revenge.
The vendetta turns an old friend into a enemy & he has men he will find whatever the cost!.
I enjoyed this old Western tale. Gilman writes in a engaging way with great characterisation & the right level of violence for the story. I would like to read more of this series & his other Edge too!.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

By the same author as the Edge series, but with a hero far less apt to kill innocent individuals, this was part of a wave of UK-written spaghetti western-inspired fiction series.

Returning from service on the Southern side of the Civil War, Steele discovers that his father - a friend of Lincoln's - has been lynched by several of the extremists supporting John Wilkes Booth. He takes revenge on the bartender who joined in on the murder and after discovering that his fellow townspeople have burned down his family's home & fields, finds himself pursued by a childhood friend, now a sheriff's deputy slavish to the word of the law if not the spirit thereof, to turn himself in. Steele gets the drop on his friend and ties him up without violence but the deputy foreswears his friendship and joins up with a rather evil bounty hunter to track down.

Steele picks off the murderers one-by-one until he finds a rogue British colonel supporting the conspirators from a rough fort in the wilderness (the UK did support the Confederacy in actuality) while a federal army troop badly bumbles their own pursuit of the conspirators.

Violent and weird, with a protagonist who will only warn characters so much about crossing that line before he acts without qualm, as his former childhood friend, who seems to have based his own moral standards on far too many dime novels, finds out by book's end.

[Wayne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Adam Steele rides into Washington D.C. the same night Lincoln is assassinated. He finds the streets empty. Curious, he wonders into a bar across from Ford's Theater. There he finds a man hanging from the rafters. Unfortunately for the bartender, he helped four men Lynch the old man. That man was Steele's father. He doles out quick revenge on the barkeep. So instead of a quite life,post Civil War, he's on the trail of these men.

Steele is a little less violent than his more known Edge series, but it still cuts to the quick. I'm not too much into westerns, though the Steele and Edge series' are a delightful exception.

[Josh Hitch · Rating 3 out of 5]

Its not bad but has a lot of moving parts. Also if you read any number of Edge books, you feel you read all of this before. Steele is a shorter Edge that had his father killed after the war instead of his brother. Basically the same mannerisms and pun filled wisecracks. The ending is pretty abrupt and easy in a way. Overall I will.keep reading the series though I think so far its just a weaker Edge series.

Recommend if you just want to see what else Gilman wrote. Again its not bad but can't help thinking I've read all of this before and the ending is fairly weak.

[Larkin Livesay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not for the faint of heart

I first read these years ago, back in the 80's. It's like visiting an old, extremely violent friend, lol. If you like the old spaghetti westerns, these will probably be of interest.

[Deanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review of steele

The story flowed along pretty well. There were points where steele's actions made him seem more super human than an angry cowboy, plus the editing left a bad taste in my mouth. Otherwise, I'm glad I read the book.

[Ronald]

read some time in 1981