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Fargo #14
Fargo 14: Bandolero
Fargo was making good money running guns across the border to Pancho Villa. He didn’t give a damn about the Mexican Revolution, as long as the money was good. Then a dangerous Mexican-Irishman named Carlos O’Brien and a good-looking El Paso saloon girl came along and Fargo found himself facing a firing squad armed with his own guns. After that he had to fight his own bloody war in the middle of the revolution. Even for Fargo, it was the toughest chore he ever had to face.
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.
Fan favourite James Reasoner has hailed Ben as “one of the best action writers of all time”. In TWENTIETH CENTURY WESTERN WRITERS, David Whitehead wrote that Ben Haas “ranks among the most influential and under-rated Western writers of recent times… the hard-hitting adventures of Neal Fargo and Jim Sundance were largely responsible for creating the Western Series market virtually single-handed.”
Check us out at www.piccadillypublishing.org
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.
Fan favourite James Reasoner has hailed Ben as “one of the best action writers of all time”. In TWENTIETH CENTURY WESTERN WRITERS, David Whitehead wrote that Ben Haas “ranks among the most influential and under-rated Western writers of recent times… the hard-hitting adventures of Neal Fargo and Jim Sundance were largely responsible for creating the Western Series market virtually single-handed.”
Check us out at www.piccadillypublishing.org
135 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 1, 1977
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
February 8, 2026
Another fun read in the series. Fargo is gun running for Villa in Mexico, also training his troops on machine guns. When Villa needs him to stop a force impersonating him from attacking the US. Villa doesn't want any battles with the US, and this attack would put him between a rock and a hard place. Fargo and a saloon gal who knows what is going on have to warn the US calvary. They just have to avoid everyone and somehow make it through North Mexico in time.
Highly recommended, a fast paced tale with plenty of action. Also, it has an element of alternate history that is fun to think about.
Highly recommended, a fast paced tale with plenty of action. Also, it has an element of alternate history that is fun to think about.
January 6, 2025
This is the first Fargo book I have read that actually references a previous book, although its not exactly a followup. Fargo is back in Mexico near the end of Pancho Villa's revolt, now splintered into three portions. His gun-running days are back, but Fargo find himself in bad shape with his Mexican clients, the US Government, and pretty much everyone in Mexico.
This one was a bit less engaging to me than the previous ones, and relied a bit too heavily on coincidence in one key point. But it was entertaining and has plenty of rip-roaring action, and shows Fargo to be a real bastard to get done what he has to and to survive.
This one was a bit less engaging to me than the previous ones, and relied a bit too heavily on coincidence in one key point. But it was entertaining and has plenty of rip-roaring action, and shows Fargo to be a real bastard to get done what he has to and to survive.
August 15, 2021
Villa - Truth be told
Fargo, you've done it again! Don't know when your luck & guts run out, but you seem to come out on top forevermore! Please, please, continue your quest for adventure & danger! Thank you Benteen for your prose of a tough character! I continue to read!!
Fargo, you've done it again! Don't know when your luck & guts run out, but you seem to come out on top forevermore! Please, please, continue your quest for adventure & danger! Thank you Benteen for your prose of a tough character! I continue to read!!
June 1, 2024
Benteen/Haas ditches key parts of the established FARGO formula to produce one of the best entries in the series with a more complex plot based on alternative history.
December 23, 2022
This one starts with even more of a bang than most of the action-packed Fargo novels usually do. We find Neil Fargo fighting for Pancho Villa, manning a Lewis machine gun as he fights a one-man rear guard action against the Federales. Once the Lewis runs out of ammo, the ensuing running fight is used to remind us of each of Fargo's usual personal weapons. It's a fun twist on the usual formula, in which Fargo's personal weapons are inventoried for us while he inspects them before heading out on a job.
That opening fight leads into a succession of unusual situations. Fargo is accused of treachery and sentenced by Villa to die by firing squad. After this situation is resolved in a bizarre but satisfying manner, Fargo finds himself on a secret mission.
The Great War is raging in Europe. To prevent the United States from joining in, the Germans are manipulating a faction of the Mexican army to start a war with the U.S. To stop this, Fargo has to make a dangerous journey back across northern Mexico, with an uncooperative and possibly treacherous woman for company. Violence, captures, and escapes follow. In one intense chapter, Fargo finds himself buried in the ground in an upright position, with only his head exposed inside a corral. A very ill-tempered stallion also occupies that corral.
It's all great stuff. I think the character twists involving the woman are predictable, but the fast-paced action never lets up. This is yet another winner in the Fargo series.
That opening fight leads into a succession of unusual situations. Fargo is accused of treachery and sentenced by Villa to die by firing squad. After this situation is resolved in a bizarre but satisfying manner, Fargo finds himself on a secret mission.
The Great War is raging in Europe. To prevent the United States from joining in, the Germans are manipulating a faction of the Mexican army to start a war with the U.S. To stop this, Fargo has to make a dangerous journey back across northern Mexico, with an uncooperative and possibly treacherous woman for company. Violence, captures, and escapes follow. In one intense chapter, Fargo finds himself buried in the ground in an upright position, with only his head exposed inside a corral. A very ill-tempered stallion also occupies that corral.
It's all great stuff. I think the character twists involving the woman are predictable, but the fast-paced action never lets up. This is yet another winner in the Fargo series.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews