Seven Out of Hell

Edge #8

by George G. Gilman

Edge is a new kind of western hero. Edge is a man alone.

Summer of '63 - back to the Civil War.

A truly great train robbery.

Chinese bandits and a village of women.

Edge betrayed for a fistful of dollars.

Cross and double-cross.

And Death - always Death!

Everyone comes together at a small town called Wounded Knee.

Genres: Westerns, Fiction

128 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 1973

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

[Wayne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hard nose western with dual stories. One, told in flashback when Edge was fighting the civil war. The other the present, when he takes a train that is bound for trouble.

The flashback has Edge and six of his men, thus the "Seven Out Of Hell" title, escaping from a confederate prison. They come across a town that seems to have only women and a priest. The women are heavily armed and are not thrilled to have these men in town.

The other story has Edge taking a train west, but the journey comes to a halt when a group of Chinese hold the train up and take hostages. Edge is one of them. A bad move for the bandits.

More violence than you can shake a stick at is here. Quick and to the point. There's no messing about. Even if you don't care for westerns, I'm not the biggest fan, these "adult westerns" are pretty wild and violent. Sort of like a good post apocalypse story.

[Bill Riggs · Rating 4 out of 5]

As Edge is taken hostage during a train robbery he reflects back on previous adventure during the Civil War when he and his men were stranded behind enemy lines. Full of gratuitous violence and western action that the series is known for.

[Mikepottz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Edge rides into a deserted town with a train station and meets one old man who built the town. The old man explains the train doesn't stop so Edge shoots his horse and leaves him on the track. Edge is able to aboard the train but luck is not on his side and a bunch of Chinese bandits rob everybody and steal Edge's money. Edge has a flashback of the war and remembers hijacking a train after escaping prison, stops the train around a corner where the enemy train crashes into it crumbling it like cardboard. Men are flung from the impact, red pulp exploding, steam and fire, faces seared, skin steamed off, Edge so full of rage he smashes a sledgehammer down hard on a charred face, blood and bone splashed everywhere. Edge and his troops grab the guns and ammunitions, hide in a farmhouse, kill a bunch of enemies and wear their uniforms after gunning them down, the blood splattered on the walls, the sound of liquid reverberating through the room. Edge will face the raider who burned his girl alive and extracts eye for an eye, burning the man alive, the blaze scorching his body to charred unrecognisable meat. More understanding of how Edge become the sociopath, killing machine with no remorse.

[John Reis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Edge has come to Big Valley to catch a train. He recalls the last time he took a train was right outside Andersonville, in the summer of 1863. Captain Josiah Hedges and six others-Hal Douglas, Frank Forest, Billy Seward, Roger Bell, Tom Scott and Bob Rhett-had escaped from the hellish POW camp and commandeered a train heading south. Edge’s men leave a trail of death, rape and devastation as they try to return to the North. Edge meets with the man who killed the only woman he ever loved.

Edge catches the train in Big Valley, but it is robbed by a gang of Chinese robbers. He and ten others are taken hostage.

This is the most violent western I have read, although those of Robert Parker come close. Edge, though, commits very little of it. The writing is good. There are some lame puns at the ends of several chapters.

[Charles · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another Edge with a lot of flashbacks to incidents in the war. I tend to like these. Not much of an ending on the main story. More a series of anecdotes and I guess set up for the next in the series. Still, not bad reading.

[Josh Hitch · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoy this series so far. This is another flashback novel to Edge's Civil War days, though it does have another plot that is happening as he is thinking back. The flashback is the aftermath of him and his squad escaping Andersonville, while the other plot is being on a train hijacked by a large force of Chinese robbers and being took as a hostage. He gets by like always by being ruthless and not much caring what happens.

Highly recommended, though I still enjoy the books without the flashback element, that seems to be used a lot in the series, more.

[James Buckley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Josiah “Edge” Hedges does not live in the Old West where kindly neighbors just tried to co-exist. His is a brutal, friendless world (albeit peppered with occasional one-liners). In this book, two narratives - one from the past, where Edge and some other Union soldiers try to survive following their escape from a Confederate prison camp, and one in the present, where a group of Chinese bandits kidnap train passengers, Edge among them, and hold them for ransom. It’s an ugly, violent world, but Gilman nonetheless made it a compelling one.

[Hashem Ahmed · Rating 3 out of 5]

My first wild-west novel

[Ronald]

read some time in 1981