Dan Barry's Daughter

Dan Barry #4

by Max Brand

Previously published in Paperback by Warner.

Genres: Westerns

Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1924

About the author

Frederick Schiller Faust (see also Frederick Faust), aka Frank Austin, George Owen Baxter, Walter C. Butler, George Challis, Evin Evan, Evan Evans, Frederick Faust, John Frederick, Frederick Frost, David Manning, Peter Henry Morland, Lee Bolt, Peter Dawson, Martin Dexter, Dennis Lawson, M.B., Hugh Owen, Nicholas Silver

Max Brand, one of America's most popular and prolific novelists and author of such enduring works as Destry Rides Again and the Doctor Kildare stories, died on the Italian front in 1944.

Reviews

[Debbie Zapata · Rating 2 out of 5]

Jan 23, 145pm ~~ This is the fourth and final Max Brand book that has anything to do with Dan Barry. I had wondered what Brand would create for the daughter of his untamed hero character, but I have to say I was disappointed in what he came up with.

The story begins when Joan Barry is eighteen, which would be thirteen years after the end of The Seventh Man. Joan's mother Kate died just a few years after the events in the final chapter of TSM, and Joan has been living with 'Dad" Buck Daniels on an isolated ranch ever since. Buck Daniels, who knows all about Joan's past and the sad, eerie truth about her parents because he witnessed it all himself.

But the night our story begins, all Joan knows is that she is restless, she feels something calling her out of the darkness, and she saddles up her horse Peter to go out searching for whatever it is.

She stumbles upon a dance in progress and spies through the window, noticing in particular a man who the reader knows is trying to get himself to Mexico to escape what he thinks will be a certain hanging. But Harry Gloster had also stumbled upon the dance and decided to enjoy himself one last time before bidding good bye to all the familiar pleasures of life.

So this is how Joan's story begins, but does it end the way the reader might expect or hope?

A few other characters from past Dan Barry books make appearances, all the way back to some of the men from Jim Silent's gang in the book The Untamed. And Lee Haines is here to contribute as well. But overall I was not as thrilled with this one as I was with the three others. Dan Barry was a compelling character, no matter if the reader felt he was Good or Bad, he was fascinating. Joan was not, at least not to me.

I suppose I wanted her to live more like 'Dan Barry's daughter', when her role seemed to be a mere
catalyst to bring loose ends together is a nice tidy knot.

[Alonzo Church · Rating 4 out of 5]

Heroine is an 18 year old woman who has been kept from the world by a cross, melancholy stepfather. Hero is a terrifically strong man of the west who is on the run because his partners were murdered and he’s the most likely suspect. Lots of Max Brand style adventure results as hero is good with his fists and Heroine is a genuine wild child, more at home with untamed stallions and gentle geldings than the civilized world. Story includes foul murder, mining camp action, a church dance, good and bad natured fisticuffs, a gang of noble bad men, horses who are better characterized than most of the humans, a jailbreak, and a number of tragic deaths. That plus a lot of backstory, and poetic interludes involving geese and horses.

Great fun for western fans.

[Jay Wright · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mining gold, you leave your partners to hunt, dead on your return. While running, you meet a girl. You don't ever see her until later but you are hopelessly in love. Girl likes you too. The law catches up. This is how the plot goes at first, but is truly about love and wanderlust. The girl has it, but intertwined is the love story of her mother and father. And the hopeless love of her stepfather. This is pretty good.

[Donna · Rating 5 out of 5]

My 2nd Favorite by Max Brand

I've read most books written by Max Brand and his other pseudonyms..this book is my second favorite 2nd only to "The Blue Jay" A romance wrapped in a western and a great read.

[Harley Bennett · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great western story with lots of twists and plenty of action by one of the early masters of western fiction.