The Saga of Halfaday Creek

Black John Smith Series #9

by James B. Hendryx, Pete Kuhlhoff (Illustrator)

As Black John, "the Law" on the Creek, is fond of saying, the interval between the crime and the hanging is hardly worth mentioning. This time, and with the sometime assistance of Corporal Downey, Black John deals competently with assorted skullduggery, and his many activities include— Solving a series of pay-roll robberies, Expertly swindling a swindler, Seeing to it that Lady Ainslee-Higginbotham’s fortune goes to the rightful heir, and not to a hospital for homeless mongooses in Rangoon.Then, too, the population of the Creek, made up mostly of outlaws who have tired of ducking insistent invitations from the Yukon and the United States police, has to be kept under control. Black John deals out justice to all with high accuracy, high speed, and high spirits.

250 pages, Paperback

First published August 15, 2013

Reviews

[David Welch · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the third volume of Hendryx's Back John northern stories I've picked up, and as fun as first. Black John giant of a man an possible army deserter(?), lives as the big man in a settlement on the Yukon-Alaska border. He administers justice of a sort, keeping this small colony of shifty men from committing crimes and generally maintaining peace. And though physically large, he almost exclusively uses guile and tricks to best his foes. In this collection he helps an out-of-place honest young man to get financial revenge on a man who hurt his family, helps a naive but incredibly lucky Minnesotan stake a claim, aids a Mounty in exposing two murderers who jumped a neighboring claim, helps a kid framed for murder when defending his lady-friend, and so on. These are fun stories. I like the northern setting/sub-genre, and wondering what crazy scheme Black John has worked up to turn things around. A bit rascal, a bit antihero, a bit trickster...a difficult balance, but Hendryx does it well.