Plumb Drillin'

by David Case

Plumb Drillin' is a novel about violence and morals of the Old Wild West. Set in Apache territory, the book focuses on a recent ex-convict named DeCaire who arrives back in the town of Mexican Hat after a three year absence, to find his wife has run off with another man, and even his own cabin is being lived in by a strangle couple from the East called the Turners.

154 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1976

About the author

David Case (1937-2018) was born in upstate New York. Since the early 1960s he lived in London, as well as spending time in Greece and Spain. His acclaimed collection The Cell: Three Tales of Horror appeared in 1969, and it was followed by the novels Fengriffen: A Chilling Tale, Wolf Tracks, and The Third Grave. His other collections include Brotherly Love and Other Tales of Trust and Knowledge, Pelican Cay & Other Disquieting Tales, and an omnibus volume in the 'Masters of the Weird Tale' series from Centipede Press. In recent years, his selected short horror fiction has been reprinted by Valancourt Books as The Cell & Other Transmorphic Tales and Fengriffen & Other Gothic Tales.

A regular contributor to the legendary Pan Book of Horror Stories series during the early 1970s, as well as a handful of westerns and pseudonymous porn novels, his powerful zombie novella “Pelican Cay” in Dark Terrors 5 was nominated for a World Fantasy Award in 2001.

(Bio adapted from Valancourt Books)

Reviews

[Derek Rutherford · Rating 4 out of 5]

Many of us of a certain age, and probably a certain geography, will recall the Pan Books of Horror. This wonderful paperback series, edited by Herbert van Thal, was a treasure trove of gruesome and diabolical short stories. Just the thing for us young teenagers back in the 1970s (when teenage boys actually read books). I had quite a collection of Pans, all long gone. All except three. For forty years I’ve held on to the three volumes that each contained a novella by David Case.

I still recall reading The Hunter for the first time and being well and truly blown away. It was just about the best thing I’d ever read up to that point in my life. And, from then on in, I was a David Case fan.

These days - although he’s not writing much any longer - David Case is known as being a masterful horror writer - his novella Fengriffen is rightly considered a classic and was made into a movie: “And Now The Screaming Starts”, and the aforementioned The Hunter was filmed as “Scream of the Wolf.”

But there was a time when he also wrote a few westerns.

Plumb Drillin’ is one of these, and a wonderful tale it is.

It’s the story of released convict Luke Adam DeCaire, a big, fearless, and mysterious man, who comes back to his old home town to pick up the pieces of his life. He is persuaded by the pretty Jane Turner to help her and her husband - who was blinded by the outlaw Apache, Terremoto, and his gang - to re-find the gold seam that the husband discovered just before he was tortured and blinded. Add into the mix a pair of wild brothers - Turk and Hoot - the former of whom had previously raped Jane Turner, and the wonderful one-armed bar-room raconteur Mose, and you have all the ingredients for a great story.

It is, for the most part, a character-driven story. And the characterisation is wonderful. There are so many great insights, descriptions, tales within tales, observations, vignettes, that it’s just a joy to read. Then the last third is all action - relentless increasing action that doesn’t let up, as all the characters come together in the scorching New Mexico landscape.

David Case writes beautifully clearly, deceptively simply, and has the ability to describe things in such a way that you see the scenes very easily. He is well worth seeking out and should be far more widely read. I can’t recommend him highly enough.

Lastly, this book was sold to the movies with Steve McQueen lined up to play the lead. It would have been a spectacular film. Alas, Steve McQueen passed away before the film was made.